Newsweekhttp://www.newsweek.com
enThe Onion Is Creating a Vice Parody Series Called 'EDGE'http://www.newsweek.com/onion-creating-web-series-spoofing-vice-357831
<p>The Onion is about to dig its satirical teeth into a long-overdue target: the hipper-than-thou Vice Media empire.</p>
<p>The satirical site just announced a new Web series called "Edge," which is set to debut August 3 and will lampoon the self-consciously "edgy" swagger of Vice's HBO show. "Vice is wrought with a distinct self-confidence, which of course gets our writers salivating," Onion VP of Production George Zwierzynski Jr. <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/onion-launch-vice-parody-series-808879" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">told <em>The Hollywood Reporter</em></a>.</p>
<p>You can get a taste of what's to come with a teaser video, which depicts bumbling, drug-obsessed reporters meandering into war zones as faux-edgy metal music blares. The video description promises "immersive reporting that is uncaged, unaccountable, and totally fucked up." An <a href="https://twitter.com/EDGEtv">@EDGEtv</a> Twitter account helps to set the mood:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">We throw acid in the face of ignorance.</p>
<p>— EDGE (@EDGEtv) <a href="https://twitter.com/EDGEtv/status/626051448208494592">July 28, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">RT if you own a sword carved from a human femur.</p>
<p>— EDGE (@EDGEtv) <a href="https://twitter.com/EDGEtv/status/626042185381576704">July 28, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>"Edge" was produced by The Onion's in-house video production team, Onion Studios. It arrives a little more than a year after The Onion <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/onions-amazing-new-buzzfeed-parody-site-will-restore-your-faith-satire-and-also-249278">launched the remarkably successful spin-off site Clickhole</a>, which takes aim at BuzzFeed and other corners of the Viral Media Industrial Complex. The new ventures suggest a willingness to move beyond The Onion's staid, newspaper-y voice and mock the tropes of new media.</p>
<p>Only problem? The <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/we-smoked-salvia-himalayas-brits-behind-viceiship-258343">Twitter account @Vice_Is_Hip</a> has the Vice parody market pretty well covered.</p>
<p>Watch the "Edge" teaser video below.</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="no" height="270" mozallowfullscreen="" name="embedded" scrolling="no" src="http://www.onionstudios.com/embed?id=3057" webkitallowfullscreen="" width="480" id="embedded"></iframe></p>
http://www.newsweek.com/onion-creating-web-series-spoofing-vice-357831Tue, 28 Jul 2015 17:16:20 -0400Documentary Remembers Matthew Shepard as a Friend, Not a Martyrhttp://www.newsweek.com/documentary-remembers-matthew-shepard-friend-not-martyr-357058
<p>There are several documentaries that could have been made in 2015 about Matthew Shepard, the openly gay University of Wyoming student who became a national symbol for hate-crime awareness after his violent 1998 murder.</p>
<p>There might have been the true crime documentary, tracing a grisly minute-by-minute account of the night Shepard met his killers in a Laramie, Wyoming, bar, where they allegedly pretended to be gay to attract the 21-year-old's interest. Or imagine the policy documentary, exploring the hate-crime legislation that's been signed into law in Shepard's honor. We might have gotten the big-budget Hollywood take, with celebrity talking heads who never knew Shepard speaking to his legacy on camera. </p>
<p><em>Matt Shepard Is a Friend of Mine</em>, the new documentary directed by Michele Josue, which premiered Monday night on Logo TV, is none of these films. It doesn't try to be. Josue, who shared a close teenage friendship with Shepard, instead peels away some of the decades of martyrdom. Her movie depicts Shepard as a complicated, brave, flawed person few had the opportunity to know. An extensive stash of home video footage gives the film an almost uncomfortably intimate air. Interview subjects—Shepard's parents, friends, a guidance counselor who says he was the first person Shepard came out to—tear up on camera and refer to him as "Matt" rather than "Matthew."</p>
<p>Judy and Dennis Shepard, the slain 21-year-old's parents, spoke to <em>Newsweek </em>about the film, which they praised as one of few tributes to their son that they consider truthful.</p>
<p>"The truth is the court transcripts, [2000 play] <em>The Laramie Project</em>, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/judy-shepard-writes-about-son-matts-life-death-79481">Judy's book</a> and this documentary," says Dennis Shepard. "Everything else is pretty much bogus." Judy concurs: "There's a lot of stuff out there that people say about Matt like they knew him, and they didn't."</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_vSY7dW0CJs" width="640"></iframe></p>
<p>The spark for the film came when Josue, who studied filmmaking after Shepard's death, approached the Shepards about making a movie about their son. After seeing the media misrepresent Shepard, "I made a promise to myself that when I was emotionally and artistically ready, I would share, with the world, who Matt really was," <a href="http://mattshepardisafriendofmine.com/directors-statement" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Josue writes</a> in a director's statement. Judy and Dennis were expecting this. They trusted her implicitly.</p>
<p>"We all felt like the Matt we knew was somehow getting lost in this Matthew Shepard iconic symbol for the gay movement," Judy tells <em>Newsweek</em>, "which was cool, because things were changing, and maybe Matt's story was helping that, but somehow the real Matt got lost. I was worried that young people would think that Matt was some perfect human being with no issues and no flaws, and there is no such thing as that. I didn't want Matt to be unrelatable.... Matt was a human being, and no one should ever treat another human being this way."</p>
<p>While the film contains wrenching detail about Shepard's final moments—he was brutally beaten and left tied to a fence in remote Wyoming—several of its most moving moments spotlight less publicized aspects of his life. In one scene, a high school friend recounts the night she comforted Shepard when he was robbed and raped during a trip to Morocco. Shepard entered treatment for depression shortly after that incident, though the trauma seems to have haunted the then-teenager up until his murder three years later. "Matt had issues with depression and all kinds of things that kids go through," Judy says.</p>
<p>The film's final scenes explore Shepard's parents' decision to broker an eleventh-hour deal to spare their son's killer, Aaron McKinney, from the death penalty. "Mr. McKinney," Dennis is shown declaring, "I grant you life in the memory of one who never lived." Though rarely maudlin, the director's techniques seem designed to bring both audience and interview subjects to tears.</p>
<p>The Shepards are grateful for the portrayal, though they find watching the film to be a mixed blessing.</p>
<p>"It's nice to see Matt again, to see him so alive and laughing and smiling," Dennis says. "But then it's really tough when the film ends because you know he's gone again."</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/documentary-remembers-matthew-shepard-friend-not-martyr-357058Tue, 28 Jul 2015 13:40:17 -0400Kanye West Debuts Intense "All Day"/"I Feel Like That" Video in L.A.http://www.newsweek.com/kanye-west-debuts-intense-all-dayi-feel-357455
<p>Kanye West debuted a lengthy, intensely choreographed video this weekend in a secret unveiling at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.</p>
<p>The 9-minute video combines recent singles "All Day" and "I Feel Like That," which are both expected to appear on forthcoming album <em>SWISH</em>, into one sprawling clip helmed by <em>12 Years a Slave</em> director Steve McQueen. The first half shows West aggressively circling the camera while performing alone in a room, and the latter half slows to find the rapper seated on the cement floor.</p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/culture/la-et-cm-kanye-west-steve-mcqueen-all-day-talk-20150724-story.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Los Angeles Times</em> report</a>, the premiere was so exclusive that attendees were sworn to secrecy and not allowed to carry cellphones. West and McQueen chatted about the video in a discussion during which the director revealed that he asked the rapper to "beat himself up" before rolling film. McQueen also said it's about "the gaze and the gaze following you."</p>
<p>One attendee evidently managed to flout the phone ban, since a secondhand recording of the video has <a href="http://www.ddotomen.com/2015/07/26/video-kanye-west-all-day-i-feel-like-that/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">leaked onto the site DDotOmen</a>.</p>
<p>There's no word on when the long-awaited album that's tentatively titled <em>SWISH </em>will arrive, though West has <a href="http://consequenceofsound.net/2015/02/kanye-west-discusses-new-album-collaborative-record-with-drake/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">said he prefers a surprise release</a>.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/kanye-west-debuts-intense-all-dayi-feel-357455Mon, 27 Jul 2015 14:21:51 -0400Jon Stewart Is Auctioning Off His 'Daily Show' Suits for Charity http://www.newsweek.com/jon-stewart-auctioning-his-daily-show-suits-charity-357261
<p>You can't have Jon Stewart's job (unless <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/comedian-trevor-noah-will-be-next-host-daily-show-317737">you're Trevor Noah</a>), but you can have his suits.</p>
<p>The <em>Daily Show</em> host-for-two-more-weeks is auctioning off a collection of Armani suits he's worn on the show and donating the proceeds to Achilles International, a charity that helps disabled people participate in sports.</p>
<p>Eighteen of the suits are <a href="http://stores.ebay.com/auctioncausestore/pages/jon-stewart?afsrc=1&amp;rmvSB=true" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">up for sale on eBay</a>, with present bids starting around $500. If you want to wear them, you'll have to be Stewart's size—the jackets are size 40 short and were custom-tailored for the host. According to the eBay landing page, the styles include "pin stripe, flat, tonal, plaid and more."</p>
<p>The auction is running from now until July 30. Stewart has worn a suit every time he has hosted <em>The Daily Show</em> since taking the gig in 1999, and now that run is <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/jon-stewart-leave-daily-show-306033">coming to an end</a>—Stewart's last episode as host will be August 6.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/jon-stewart-auctioning-his-daily-show-suits-charity-357261Sat, 25 Jul 2015 13:20:17 -0400Wyatt Cenac Says Jon Stewart Screamed at Him Over 'Daily Show' Segment on Racismhttp://www.newsweek.com/wyatt-cenac-says-jon-stewart-screamed-him-over-daily-show-segment-356794
<p>Comedian Wyatt Cenac <a href="http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_622_-_wyatt_cenac" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">appeared on Marc Maron's <em>WTF</em> podcast</a> Thursday and opened up about his rocky relationship with Jon Stewart.</p>
<p>Cenac was a correspondent and writer for <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/topic/daily-show"><em>The Daily Show</em></a> for more than four years, but said he never got along well with the host. "I really wanted to connect with him in that sort of paternal way, and that wasn't his thing," Cenac said on the podcast, adding that the longest conversation he ever had with Stewart was on the day he quit.</p>
<p>When Maron asked what happened between them, Cenac delved into a long and uncomfortable story about confronting Stewart over a segment involving racism in 2011. The comedian was the only black writer at <em>The Daily Show</em>. Cenac was initially bothered by a segment in which Stewart used a "black voice" to poke fun at presidential candidate Herman Cain. After heavy criticism from Fox News, Stewart wanted to respond with a <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/7qzuu1/oh--for-fox-sake---stewart-eviscerates-stewart" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">segment</a> suggesting that all his impressions are racist, which Cenac described as "overly defensive." </p>
<p>According to Cenac's account, he suggested dropping the segment, and Stewart responded with, "What are you trying to say? There’s a tone in your voice." When Cenac repeated his concerns, Stewart told him to "fuck off" and started screaming at the writer.</p>
<p>"He stormed out," Cenac said, "and I didn’t know if I had been fired." (He wasn't.)</p>
<p>Afterward, Cenac went outside and cried. He spoke to Maron about what it's like to be the only black writer in an environment where he's forced to "represent my community." As he put it on <em>WTF</em>, "Sadly, I think that’s the burden a lot of people have to have when you are 'the one.' You represent something bigger than yourself whether you want to or not."</p>
<p>This isn't the first time Stewart has been accused of responding poorly when questioned about racism. In an essay for Salon, writer Alison Kinney <a href="http://www.salon.com/2014/04/09/jon_stewart_cursed_me_out_i_dared_question_a_daily_show_warm_up_comics_racist_jokes/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">described being dismissed</a> when she attended a <em>Daily Show</em> taping and called out the warm-up comedian's racist jokes.</p>
<p>Representatives for <em>The Daily Show</em> were not immediately available to comment. Stewart's long tenure as <em>Daily Show</em> host comes to a close next month; he <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/comedian-trevor-noah-will-be-next-host-daily-show-317737">will be replaced</a> by South African comedian Trevor Noah.</p>
<p>Listen to the full <em>WTF</em> episode with Wyatt Cenac <a href="http://www.wtfpod.com/podcast/episodes/episode_622_-_wyatt_cenac" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/wyatt-cenac-says-jon-stewart-screamed-him-over-daily-show-segment-356794Thu, 23 Jul 2015 19:24:11 -0400‘We Need Some Limits’: A Very Brief Q&A With Gawker Founder Nick Dentonhttp://www.newsweek.com/we-need-some-limits-qa-gawker-founder-nick-denton-356422
<p><em>For nearly a week, Gawker has been in crisis mode.</em></p>
<p><em>A widely reviled story about a Condé Nast executive's private life—which was published July 16 and pulled by founder Nick Denton the following day—set the spark. Two top editors have <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/executive-editor-and-editor-chief-gawker-media-resign-following-controversial-355476">resigned</a>. The rest of the staff <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2015/07/8572584/gawker-tax-getting-too-high-denton-tells-his-staff" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">is seething</a>. And the timing couldn't be worse: Gawker is in the middle of a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/jul/22/gawker-media-hulk-hogan-privacy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">$100 million lawsuit over a Hulk Hogan sex tape</a> and also rather busy moving offices. </em></p>
<p><em>Denton, the British entrepreneur who founded his flagship gossip blog out of a SoHo apartment in 2003, seems to acknowledge Gawker's identity crisis. Once, the philosophy was to publish anything, however lowbrow or scathing. Now, he tells </em>Newsweek<em>, "we need some limits." Gawker once preached the gospel of total editorial freedom. In this case, Denton didn't hesitate to interfere with his staff's editorial judgment—or to <a href="http://www.capitalnewyork.com/article/media/2015/07/8572584/gawker-tax-getting-too-high-denton-tells-his-staff" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">remind them of business concerns</a>.</em></p>
<p><em>We spoke with the Gawker founder by phone on Wednesday afternoon. He talked about Gawker's present state, the meaning of editorial freedom and the radioactive blog post that sparked this mess in the first place.</em></p>
<p><strong>How are things at Gawker right now?</strong><br />I think they're settling down. This is day seven since the story was published. I think yesterday [Tuesday] was the day of maximum drama.</p>
<p><strong>In light of what has happened over the past several days, do you regret interfering with the post on Friday?</strong><br />You know, I've heard so much about this. I'm not going to get into it. </p>
<p><strong>You don't want to talk about that?</strong><br />I'm not going to give anything, I'm not going to add anything more. You can find <a href="http://nick.kinja.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">plenty of stuff that I've written</a> where I say, this is the right decision. It was a difficult decision, but it was the right decision.</p>
<p><strong>It looks like there's a bit of a revolt happening at Gawker right now, and a lot of the writers don't have much faith in you. What is your response to that?</strong><br />We're meeting with the writers tomorrow. I'm not going to add any fuel to those flames. They're obviously understandably angry. They published a story that met with universal condemnation. The site <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/executive-editor-and-editor-chief-gawker-media-resign-following-controversial-355476">lost its editor-in-chief</a>, who resigned over the story. The writers have been used to... They had the license to publish absolutely anything under the guise of editorial freedom. And we need some limits.</p>
<p><strong>That's very different from how you've spoken in the past.</strong><br />In the more distant past, maybe.</p>
<p><strong>You no longer believe in full editorial freedom for your staff?</strong><br />I'm really not sure about the direction of your questions. I absolutely believe in editorial freedom for the staff to pursue worthwhile stories. This is not a worthwhile story. The editorial freedom is a privilege, and it's a privilege that is supported by the business. And it's protected by the First Amendment. And it is too important to waste on outing a private individual and taking relish in the story and the blow-by-blow of his exchanges with an escort.</p>
<p><strong>You think the condemnation over that story was justified?</strong><br />I shared their distaste for the story. The story itself was not... A lot of writers on Gawker and on the other sites are embarrassed about it. And they're angry that the post was taken down. Both of those emotions at the same time.</p>
<p>I actually have to get going. If you email me, if you have anything else, just email me, and I'll try to give you a response in writing, if that's OK.</p>
<p><em>[Note: At this point, Denton abruptly ended the interview but offered to answer additional questions via email. We've sent over questions and will update if we hear back.]</em></p>
http://www.newsweek.com/we-need-some-limits-qa-gawker-founder-nick-denton-356422Thu, 23 Jul 2015 14:43:34 -0400What Do Indie Musicians Really Think About Music Streaming?http://www.newsweek.com/ten-indie-musicians-weigh-music-streaming-debate-355298
<p>Who's afraid of the big, bad music streaming services?</p>
<p>Billionaires, mostly. Multimillionaires, at the least. The great irony of the shouting match over Spotify compensation and Apple Music's trial-period pay scale is that it's being led by A-list artists who <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/brief-history-taylor-swift-declaring-war-streaming-platforms-345546">can't possibly need the money</a>. Taylor Swift and Thom Yorke have been among the loudest voices against Spotify; Prince and Neil Young are <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/neil-young-pulls-music-streaming-services-because-low-sound-quality-354072">some of the latest anti-streaming converts</a>. </p>
<p>Indie artists are more conflicted and less empowered. They're ambivalent about the revenue but <a href="http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2013/07/why-smaller-artists-wont-be-joining-thom-yorkes-crusade-against-spotify/67217/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">like the exposure and can't imagine cutting themselves off from it</a>. Since the conversation is generally dominated by superstars, we asked 12 different indie artists what <em>they </em>think about the streaming debate. Those answers appear below.</p>
<p>Two notes: First, it's worth pointing out that the majority of artists we reached out to with this query declined to comment. The very subject seems to make musicians nervous. "It makes interesting people clam up because they're terrified of saying something that other musicians are going to be mad at them for," singer-producer John Vanderslice tells <em>Newsweek</em>. Tim Kasher, of the band Cursive, says his label tells him to "play nice" with the streaming sites.</p>
<p>Second, the word "indie" in this context is meant very, very broadly. Think of it as a blanket term for any artist who isn't a household name, isn't routinely headlining stadiums and isn't already wealthy enough from music to retire to an island tomorrow.</p>
<p>These statements were all provided to <em>Newsweek </em>in the context of phone or in-person interviews, or via email. Many of them were condensed for length.</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Headphones are seen in front of a logo of online music streaming service Spotify in this illustration picture taken in Strasbourg, February 18, 2014.</span>
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<p><strong>Dan Bejar </strong><em>(frontman of Destroyer, member of New Pornographers and Swan Lake)</em></p>
<p>It seems like a young person’s war. I don’t listen to records like that. So I’m not sure what the payment scheme should be for someone from it. This isn’t a defense of streaming at all, because mainly I think it sounds bad. But I don’t know. The 20th century is so chockablock full of musicians getting fucked left, right and center. It’s hubris to think that this century should be any different.... Musicians are the first ones to sign everything away for a buck. There’s too much momentum behind them doing that. I hope it changes. I hope something’s figured out. It’d be good to buy food and have shelter all from the earnings of people listening to your music. It’s the dream.</p>
<p><strong>MC Lars</strong> <em>(rapper, producer)</em></p>
<p>Fifty percent of my monthly digital income is literally from Spotify. People complain about streaming, but the thing is, if you own your own masters, it's beneficial financially because you get a little bit each time someone listens to you. It's super convenient and well-curated, and so many fans on the Warped Tour say they heard of me from Spotify. If you want to make money as an artist these days, you have to be on the road and sell merch and tickets. People who whine about streaming hurting the music industry don't understand the DIY/live music/club hustle side of things. No one is going to hand you anything.</p>
<p><strong>Catey Shaw </strong><em>(singer-songwriter, best known for 2014 viral hit <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2poC56ycWA">"Brooklyn Girls"</a>)</em></p>
<p>Streaming services have been a very valuable tool for me. I don’t know what's gonna happen with Apple Music, but if I end up seeing numbers close to what I've got on Spotify, that could end up becoming another great way for me to get my music to fresh ears and another strong stream of revenue. I feel like the main problem that people have with these services is the way profit is distributed. But to me, that has more to do with the people releasing the song and less to do with who's streaming it. Who owns the master? Who owns the publishing? I'm in a great position because the money isn't being split too many ways. My label is me and one other person. So when the money comes in, it goes straight to us. I just feel like this is the future of music consumption, and I can either hop on board or fall behind. And if hopping on board can pay my rent (which it amazingly is right now), then I'm all for it.</p>
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<p><strong>John Vanderslice </strong><em>(solo artist, producer, founder of Tiny Telephone recording studio)</em></p>
<p>Taylor Swift should be more upset about the horrible interface of Apple Music than anything else. The deep, profound irony of all this is that musicians have been getting screwed on publishing and streaming and royalties since the beginning of time. The inside joke with musicians is that one festival play is 10 years' worth of streaming. So it's kind of ridiculous to be focusing on such a small percentage of your revenue stream. Honestly, Taylor Swift probably makes more selling T-shirts and tote bags for her summer festival run. I don't have any problem with Taylor Swift. When you have power, you use it. But the average independent band, their eyes will literally glaze over when you talk about Spotify. Including myself. I've been asked so many times to chime in on this debate, and there's absolutely nothing to say because it's literally the most boring conversation we could have. </p>
<p>Why are streaming rates so low? It doesn't matter! It's always been live performance revenue. Do you want to make money if you're an artist? Print up 200-gram vinyl records and go on tour and sell at the merch table, and you will make money. It's always been that way. I don't begrudge the Taylor Swift crew for beating down. You gotta love when these people go to battle against each other. It's fun! It's definitely meaningless downstream. I remember getting my first royalty check from Spotify and Pandora and all the streaming stuff. It's small, and you're like: Throw it into the other ASCAP and BMI small checks you get. That's the deep irony. Musicians pretend that this was a sea change. </p>
<p>It's interesting, because the disparity is shocking. You could be played on commercial radio in the states and earn like $5.31. You could get played once on Spotify and get point-zero-zero-whatever, and you could be played once on Japanese radio and get like $71. It's almost comical and totally random. We know that the game's been fixed forever. It's not like the BMI or ASCAP are accurate when they're collecting radio revenues. The way that money revenue is divvied up is famously corrupt. This is an old tune. We might as well be listening to "Take the A Train." It is fucking old. There's famous stories of Queen or producers that have three points on a Michael Jackson record that never get money from it. There has been stolen revenue in the performing arts forever.</p>
<p>From the beginning, I was a rare bird. I remember emailing Napster maybe six months after that stuff hit and becoming friends with people in Napster when basically they were in a military bunker hiding out from the world. I always encouraged people to BitTorrent my records. I always made money from touring, and I always made money from selling hard, collectible copies. So for me, the idea of a low-resolution digital stream or download, putting a valuation on that is comical. It's kind of overstepping the boundary of what it's actually worth for me. Another thing is that my income rose in this time. When it should have fallen, it went up. That happened to a lot of artists who dug in and devoted themselves to making interesting albums that were true to their own vision! You're not gonna fail! You put on a good live show and you tour your ass off, and all of the sudden you're in Australia and you're in Europe and you're making shit happen! You just don't care about these small and historically irrelevant shifts. In 10 years, the landscape is going to be totally different again. </p>
<p>When you see <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2015/05/29/how-get-nicki-minaj-perform-your-kids-bar-mitzvah-331080.html">what the haves get paid for playing a private party</a>, playing a sweet 16 party that's off the books... I just hear from the people I know at booking agencies, when they tell me [about] some of these bands that are definitely very vocal complaining what they make to play one private party in Hollywood or whatever. It's totally funny to me. Part of the story of Spotify is that it resonates with everyone when someone can say, "When you stream one of my songs, I only make point-zero-zero-zero-zero-one-seven." Everyone is kind of phonily aghast, like, "Oh, how <em>dare</em> they!" Yet these bands are making 100 times more—even if they were being paid correctly from these streaming services—from one show.</p>
<p>Even if they recalculated the revenue models, the percentage would still be the same—that it's statistically irrelevant compared to what they're making. If they just accepted one more private party in the next 10 years, they could actually make up that revenue! It's just a moan that resonates with the average person more than, "Oh my god, it's so much to rent four buses. And the drivers union now—they're restricting drivers to eight hours. What a drag.…" You can't say that in an interview with Pitchfork and have people feel for you. But everyone can complain about Spotify and it feels right.</p>
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<p><strong>Mackenzie Scott </strong><em>(artist who records as Torres, from <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/violent-joys-violent-loneliness-chat-torres-mackenzie-scott-327864">our May Q&amp;A</a>)</em></p>
<p>I never expected to make money off of streaming or off of album sales, necessarily. The only world I've ever known is the one where people pirate music. Or the one where only the 1 percent of musicians actually make a lot of money doing this. I'm of the LimeWire generation.… I think that avenues such as licensing, having songs placed in TV and film and all of that [are necessary to make money from music]. And I think that expectations just have to be readjusted for people in this industry. Obviously I wish that everyone would pay for the art that they enjoy. But that was never an expectation for me, and I'm not naive enough to believe that selling a few thousand copies of my record is going to be enough to sustain myself in this industry.</p>
<p><strong>Tim Kasher</strong> <em>(singer for Cursive and The Good Life)</em></p>
<p>When Spotify first hit the scene, I was furious, incensed! It felt as though any would-be lobbyist for the music industry merely shrugged their shoulders after a decade of internet pillaging with a whimper: "Eh, have at it—music is worthless now, anyway." But who am I to cry foul, especially considering how Lars Ulrich <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/noisy-war-over-napster-160607">was put in his place for coming off as too greedy</a>? Sure, perhaps Lars wasn't the best spokesperson for the job, but it still felt like his lashings were a warning to all musicians—"less talk, more rock"—as it's so aptly shouted from countless audiences.</p>
<p>A few years later, I've found myself shrugging my shoulders as well. I mean, you can't win, right? The fight was over before it started with Internet pirating, and it felt that no one from our side was swinging (OK, besides Lars). So we've been beaten into submission, and now even my label stresses that I should "play nice" with the streaming sites, because at least they are <em>trying </em>to find some money for us, and sadly, they are coming off as the best option these days.</p>
<p>I don't feel greedy when I air my grievances about these sites, because it's really <em>not </em>about money; it's about that intangible, intrinsic value of intellectual property. And for anybody who cares to make the newly cliché argument of "Oh, boohoo, you make money on the road, go sell some T-shirts," well, what about the recording engineers and producers? Aren't they artists? (Believe me, they're the craziest people I know—<em>definitely </em>artists.) What about the year that goes into writing and recording those albums? Sure, we can "offset" those costs with tour, but that doesn't change the fact that the time spent is still devalued. Speaking of those engineers and producers, they are being phased out, because why on earth should musicians burn money on a "nice recording" when it's just given away for pennies anyway? May as well record it on a boom box.</p>
<p>But alas, as said musicians are beaten into submission, I've pricked up my ears to the potential of Apple Music. I've used Netflix for years now and don't feel as though the value of movies and TV shows has diminished, so hopefully Apple will help re-instill that same sense of value into all of us consumers, to the tune of 10 bucks a month. I can live with that, I suppose. (Cringe!)</p>
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<p><strong>Sadie Dupuis</strong> <em>(singer and guitarist for Speedy Ortiz)</em></p>
<p>Even if it weren't most labels' status quo practice to make their catalogs streamable (apart from Drag City—kudos), we'd want our records available on streaming services. I find out about and get into new records through streaming services more often than not—I'd say 75 percent of the new records I've bought in the past year have been because I listened to them ad nauseam on Spotify, and 25 percent because I heard the band at a show and thought they were killer.</p>
<p>I'm happy to let these established artists lobby on behalf of those of us who make most of our money from touring. But I think as a young artist, you're much likelier to gain a following by making your music available. If people weren't streaming our album on Spotify, they'd be torrenting it. Even worse, they'd be ignoring it. I guess I'd rather someone check out our record for free and later decide to buy it or not than to never hear it at all. Like a CD listening station in the Virgin Megastore (RIP).</p>
<p>I guess our expectations were always low enough that we never expected to make money off music and always assumed it would be something we did as a passion project. We're stoked to get paid well enough from shows to make a living, and it's great to show up at shows and have people know the words, and I doubt that would happen without streaming. I mean, it'd be great to make money off all that streaming! But I have to assume that a lot of our record sales are a direct result of streaming, so I think it balances out.</p>
<p><strong>Shane Cody </strong><em>(drummer for Houndmouth)</em></p>
<p>It's a catch-22. Our music is available to be discovered and heard by anyone all over the world, which is amazing and would have been impossible before. But at what point is it OK to give your work away for free? I still buy records both physical and on iTunes, but I also use Spotify. I can't stress enough that if you want to support a band, go see them live or buy a shirt. Music sales are dead for now.</p>
<p><strong>Matt Whipple</strong> <em>(bassist for Cymbals Eat Guitars)</em></p>
<p>As a music consumer, I think Spotify is an amazing product because of the convenience it offers. I live in a very small apartment and I don't have room for a large music collection. Having a hard drive full of MP3s as a stand-in for music "ownership" never felt real to me, and downloading album after album was a pretty joyless experience. As soon as Spotify presented an opportunity to cut the chord from an iTunes library, I was all about it, and more than happy to pay $9 per month for it. As a consumer, I think that price is an absolute steal and more than worth it.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as someone who would like to be paid a fair amount for the work that goes into creating music that people connect with and enjoy, streaming poses a problem because these business models do not put these companies in a position to offer most artists anything close to fair compensation. This is a huge problem for the vast majority of artists on these services whose music is being essentially co-opted by tech companies to sell access to it. We really can't afford to pass up on any amount of exposure on the scale something like Spotify offers, even if the price we pay is the devaluation of our main product. I would love to see a headline about someone who is not Taylor Swift or Neil Young, someone who is not a millionaire who is taking a very real risk by pulling their catalog from streaming. It would really take everybody at the level of our band doing it en masse to have any kind of impact.</p>
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<p><strong>Chris Carrabba </strong><em>(lead singer/guitarist for Dashboard Confessional)</em></p>
<p>It's a new world for music, and it isn't going back. I do not think artists are compensated fairly for streaming (if at all, in some cases). However, streaming services provide exposure to bands, and hopefully that results in a true and deep connection to a fan base. If that occurs, then the band may be able to make a living from ticket and T-shirt sales. In short, I can't speak to the experience of other bands, but I am glad our music is on these sites. I've seen the result firsthand, and it has helped.</p>
<p><strong>Andy Nelson </strong><em>(guitarist for Ceremony)</em></p>
<p>We're in a much different position than Jay Z or Daft Punk or some of the luminaries who are touting Tidal. We come from the punk scene, where accessibility in music is one of the more important things—more so than profit. I really like the idea that our music is available and accessible to anyone who wants it. I think that subscription-based or paywall-based things are, to me personally, a bit favorable to a model like YouTube, where anyone can take your music and upload it without your consent and then couch it in advertising for corporations we may not wish our music to appear next to. We come out of the DIY movement where complete control and ownership of your music and control over where it appears just goes hand-in-hand with making it. These services do seem to me to be a better option than trying to convince people that buying CDs is a really good idea.</p>
<p>If I had my way of it, I would much prefer to have my music on private streaming services than on Google or Facebook or some of the other giant corporations that are insanely profitable and maybe have some business practices or ethical standpoints that we don't agree with. In the '90s, people were always talking about bands selling out and being on major labels. That's not as much a thing anymore, but what you haven't said is any band that's able to record their own music in a basement can have their demo distributed by the most profitable corporation that has ever existed in the history of man.</p>
<p><strong>Jackson Phillips </strong><em>(solo artist who records as Day Wave)</em></p>
<p>For me, the whole streaming thing has been super beneficial. Especially Spotify and SoundCloud, which is where I launched my project from. Spotify really helped out with their playlists and their charts that they have integrated into the platform. The viral chart—that was a huge thing for the band. I'm not super concerned about [compensation] at the moment. I've never made lots of money off of music. It's farfetched to me still that I would make a lot of money off of music. Because I'm very new to this. That doesn't bother me because I'm just so excited about the fact that people are listening to my music. This is the way things have been going for years, and it's super beneficial to new artists like me.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/ten-indie-musicians-weigh-music-streaming-debate-355298Thu, 23 Jul 2015 08:49:14 -0400The AP Will Put Thousands of Hours of Archival News Footage Onlinehttp://www.newsweek.com/ap-will-put-thousands-hours-old-news-footage-online-356102
<p>After a century and a half in business, The Associated Press has amassed tens of thousands of hours of archival news footage. </p>
<p>Now much of that historical footage will find a digital home. The AP is partnering with the newsreel archive British Movietone to bring more than 550,000 archival news clips to YouTube. According to a <a href="http://variety.com/2015/digital/news/ap-archival-news-footage-youtube-1201545433/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">report in<em> Variety</em></a>, the treasure trove of clips dates back to 1895 and covers such events as the Pearl Harbor bombing, the rise of Elvis Presley in the 1950s and the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.</p>
<p>It will mark the biggest collection of archival news footage available on YouTube, according to <em>Variety</em>. An AP-produced <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=18&amp;v=06TGkYxUafE">"Welcome" video</a> offers a preview.</p>
<p>The collection already includes clips covering such events as the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2c2uziGKSis">Vietnam War</a>, the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7FQ-lbpn34">legalization of same-sex marriage</a> in New York and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nvauGdDIdY">J.K. Rowling's announcement of the final <em>Harry Potter</em> book</a>. The AP has been uploading about 30,000 such stories a day.</p>
<p>Here's the introduction video:</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/06TGkYxUafE" width="640"></iframe></p>
http://www.newsweek.com/ap-will-put-thousands-hours-old-news-footage-online-356102Wed, 22 Jul 2015 11:20:27 -0400Miley Cyrus to Host MTV Video Music Awardshttp://www.newsweek.com/miley-cyrus-host-mtv-video-music-awards-356046
<p>Two years after the <a href="http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2013/08/vmas-twerk-all-way-ratings-success/68748/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">twerk heard 'round the world</a>, Miley Cyrus is returning to the MTV Video Music Awards—in a very different capacity.</p>
<p>Cyrus has been chosen to host the 32nd annual VMAs, which will air August 30. On Twitter, the singer posted a photo of herself in a green bodysuit and joked (or maybe it's not such a joke) that she isn't allowed to perform, given previous performances:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Fuck yeah VMAs!!!!! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/VMAs?src=hash">#VMAs</a> on <a href="https://twitter.com/MTV">@MTV</a> Aug 30 at 9pm <a href="http://t.co/iiBzMm0l3C" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/iiBzMm0l3C</a></p>
<p>— Miley Ray Cyrus (@MileyCyrus) <a href="https://twitter.com/MileyCyrus/status/623264744368005120">July 20, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>The choice is an easy one—Cyrus's mom-shocking twerking performance on the 2013 VMAs drew more than 10 million viewers, even if the former <em>Hannah Montana</em> star has spent much of her time since then <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2015/03/miley-cyrus-and-wayne-coyne-a-timeline.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">palling around with the Flaming Lips</a> and <a href="http://gawker.com/miley-cyrus-frees-her-nipples-in-topless-instagram-phot-1675985556" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">fighting Instagram's nudity ban</a>.</p>
<p>As for the awards side of things, Beyoncé and Ed Sheeran have each garnered three nominations (including video of the year), while rapper Kendrick Lamar pulled five (three of which stem from his collaboration with <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/taylor-swifts-bad-blood-music-video-stars-all-her-celebrity-besties-332855">Taylor Swift in the "Bad Blood" video</a>).</p>
<p>Swift's "Bad Blood" was nominated for Video of the Year, up against Beyoncé's "7/11," Sheeran's "Thinking Out Loud," Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars's "Uptown Funk" and Kendrick Lamar's "Alright."</p>
<p>Swift, to her undying credit, never seems to stop getting excited about award show nominations:</p>
<p> </p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">GUYS!! You got Bad Blood nominated for Video of the Year at the VMA's!! Vote here pleeeeease? <a href="http://t.co/IcQyWxJfKC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://t.co/IcQyWxJfKC</a></p>
<p>— Taylor Swift (@taylorswift13) <a href="https://twitter.com/taylorswift13/status/623515282552827904">July 21, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
http://www.newsweek.com/miley-cyrus-host-mtv-video-music-awards-356046Tue, 21 Jul 2015 18:24:18 -0400How to Rage-Quit Your Prestigious Media Job on Principlehttp://www.newsweek.com/how-rage-quit-your-prestigious-media-job-out-principle-355815
<p>There's a new trend in media, and it's publicly resigning prestigious editing gigs on principle.</p>
<p>You've fantasized about it. We all have. The best reason to take a top media job at this point is so you can one day make a big show of quitting it. As they say in <em>Heathers</em>, whether to rage-quit or not is one of the most important decisions an editor can make.</p>
<p>The latest bloodbath: Gawker Media, where Nick Denton's flagship site has <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/executive-editor-and-editor-chief-gawker-media-resign-following-controversial-355476">fallen into chaos</a> following a reviled Gawker post outing a Condé Nast executive who tried to hire a male prostitute. Denton removed the post against the wishes of the editorial staff. Gawker editor Max Read and Gawker Media executive editor Tommy Craggs have both resigned in protest.</p>
<p>This drama arrives just seven months after a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/even-newer-republic-mass-resignations-plague-tnrs-new-direction-289433">herd of <em>New Republic</em> editors publicly quit</a> over a regime change. As <a href="http://gawker.com/everyones-quitting-the-new-republic-1667240179" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Read himself wrote</a> on that occasion, "Never give a journalist an opportunity to Take A Stand." </p>
<p>Too late. Are you thinking of flexing your principle muscles and quitting in style? Much like the Dramatic Message Board Exit of the early 2000s, there's a subtle art to the journalism resignation. Here's our guide to Getting the Most Out of Your Melodramatic Public Resignation.</p>
<p><strong>Tip 1: Make sure you have a noble reason to quit.</strong></p>
<p>The right to publish a near-universally loathed blog post outing a private figure's sex life? Not noble enough. A breach in the once-sacred firewall between business and editorial? Better.</p>
<p>Remember: Future generations are only going to know your resignation from a single sentence in the lengthy <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gawker#Cond.C3.A9_Nast_CFO_escort_outing" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Controversies"</a> section of Gawker's Wikipedia page, so you'll want the reasoning to make you look good.</p>
<p><strong>Tip 2: Have money.</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">How much $$$ do you need to have in your bank account to resign in protest?</p>
<p>— Kara Smoke (@kbsmoke) <a href="https://twitter.com/kbsmoke/status/623192077619318784">July 20, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>This one's self-explanatory: You're quitting your job! In most cases, you won't be getting severance pay (though Nick Denton <a href="http://nick.kinja.com/to-all-of-edit-at-gawker-media-1719034987" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">said</a> Monday's resignations could be "subject to severance"). As Flavorwire's Sarah Seltzer <a href="http://flavorwire.com/492778/why-the-new-republic-resignations-baffled-so-many-of-us" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">wrote after the Great <em>TNR</em> Exodus of 2014</a>, "It’s very hard to stand up to a power structure and threaten to walk away from a paycheck over a matter of principle when your salary and welfare are at risk."</p>
<p><strong>Tip 3: Know your enemies.</strong></p>
<p>Media is catty—competitors are always going to take glee in a large media organization's meltdown. When Gawker is involved, <em>schadenfreude </em>levels rise well above sea level.</p>
<p>That's to be expected. Gawker has long <a href="http://gawker.com/white-men-upset-wrong-white-man-placed-in-charge-of-whi-1666925379" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reveled</a> in <a href="http://gawker.com/call-for-tips-what-the-fuck-is-going-on-at-the-new-yor-1577423753" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">other</a> <a href="http://gawker.com/what-are-the-odds-these-new-media-brands-will-survive-1619650304" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">outlets'</a> <a href="http://tktk.gawker.com/more-people-work-at-fusion-than-are-reading-its-most-po-1708507965" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">miseries</a>—it's part of what makes the site great. It's also part of what makes anyone who's ever harbored a grudge happily pile on when Gawker is on the receiving end of the shaming. Which is why staffers at <em>The New Yorker</em> and <em>The New York Times </em>aren't even trying to conceal their glee over Gawker's implosion:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">The irony of seeing Gawker staffers tweet about how hard it's been for them to see people say mean things about them on the Internet.</p>
<p>— Liam Stack (@liamstack) <a href="https://twitter.com/liamstack/status/623229701348306948">July 20, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Gawker is imploding under the weight of its own profoundly misguided self-righteousness: <a href="http://t.co/hw6Jib9kNs" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://t.co/hw6Jib9kNs</a></p>
<p>— Michael Barbaro (@mikiebarb) <a href="https://twitter.com/mikiebarb/status/622166191897997312">July 17, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Last word on this: in extreme cases of terrible journalism, yes, an owner should step in to save a publication from an editor's bad decision</p>
<p>— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/623198328495472640">July 20, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Be ready for this volcano of ill will, especially if you have <a href="https://twitter.com/max_read/status/543468145990963200">mocked</a> other journalists' melodramatic resignations in the past. In his almost-but-not-quite-resignation letter to fellow staffers, Max Read shouts out "the army of Gamergaters and Redditors" and "the Twitter squad of smarmy media enemies," both of whom "are desperate for [Gawker's] collapse."</p>
<p>Of course, Gawker is not going to collapse. The site thrives on controversy; meltdowns of this nature (if not quite this scale) are a semiregular occurrence. Losing top editorial talent in one weekend is a substantial loss. But the Gawker editor position is like the Defense Against the Dark Arts professorship of online media—no one holds onto it for more than a year or two.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">I'm not sure this is in my top 5 Gawker editor resignations of all time, tbh.</p>
<p>— Anil Dash (@anildash) <a href="https://twitter.com/anildash/status/623170023679397888">July 20, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Tip 4: Compare your boss to Hitler.</strong></p>
<p>Can't hurt at this point, can it? You're out the door. Might as well say what you really think.</p>
<p>Which is essentially <a href="https://twitter.com/justinjm1/status/623225731372445696">what outgoing Gawkerer Tommy Craggs did</a> at a Gawker gathering on Monday, telling staffers: "This is Nick [Denton]’s <em>Reichstag </em>fire." According to an <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/07/gawkers-existential-crisis.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">anonymous source</a> in <em>New York</em> magazine who may or may not hold a Ph.D. in European history, Craggs meant that this fight provided "the pretext by which [Nick Denton] can Vox-ify Gawker." For those unfamiliar with the reference to the <em>Reichstag </em>fire, it has a lot to do with a 1933 arson attack in Berlin (which became the basis for Hitler to suspend civil liberties in Germany and get Nazi political rivals out of the way) and not much to do with ethics in gossip-blog journalism.</p>
<p><strong>Tip 5: Angrily tweet your resignation at your (former) publication.</strong></p>
<p>Because it's fun! This is your resignation, so make it as melodramatic as possible.</p>
<p>Sure, you're only really tweeting at the 21-year-old social media intern. CEOs and media brass rarely involve themselves with the nuts and bolts of social media management. But it gets the point across nicely, doesn't it:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Dear <a href="https://twitter.com/tnr">@TNR</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/chrishughes">@chrishughes</a>, please immediately remove me from your masthead as a Contributing Editor. <a href="http://t.co/au7HNKDvoq" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://t.co/au7HNKDvoq</a></p>
<p>— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanLizza/status/540616119154130945">December 4, 2014</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">I guess it goes without saying that I'm with <a href="https://twitter.com/RyanLizza">@RyanLizza</a>. <a href="https://twitter.com/tnr">@tnr</a> please remove me from your contributing editors. <a href="https://t.co/cKDmucx3CS" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://t.co/cKDmucx3CS</a></p>
<p>— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) <a href="https://twitter.com/jonathanchait/status/540625120881283072">December 4, 2014</a></p></blockquote>
<p>This is especially easy to do when you're resigning from a part-time masthead prestige position that never required you to write more than a few pieces a year for the publication in the first place.</p>
<p>(Note: If you can fit the reason for your principled resignation in 140 characters—as Mark Maslin did when he <a href="https://twitter.com/profmarkmaslin/status/581171535236431872">resigned from the trade publication <em>Scientific Reports</em></a> in March—that's a neat plus. If you're resigning from BuzzFeed, <a href="http://www.thewrap.com/buzzfeed-writer-resigns-after-backlash-over-deleted-dove-post/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">a Rihanna GIF will suffice</a>.)</p>
<p><strong>Tip 6: Or, better yet, announce your resignation in a post on the site you're leaving.</strong></p>
<p>As pioneered by ex-Gawker editor Emily Gould, who famously penned the truck-accident-report-turned-public-resignation post <a href="http://gawker.com/328558/a-long-dark-early-evening-of-the-soul-with-keith-gessen" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"A Long, Dark Early Evening of the Soul With Keith Gessen"</a> in 2007.</p>
<p><strong>Tip 7: In the middle of your honeymoon? No problem!</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Can't believe I am typing these words, but I resigned from <a href="https://twitter.com/tnr">@tnr</a> today. And since I'm in Africa on my honeymoon, this is beyond strange.</p>
<p>— Hillary Kelly (@HillaryKelly) <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryKelly/status/540936236400410624">December 5, 2014</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>Tip 8: Leak internal chats.</strong></p>
<p>In Tommy Craggs's farewell memo to Gawker, he made a point about Gawker managers' detachment from the company's editorial culture by <a href="http://gawker.com/tommy-craggs-and-max-read-are-resigning-from-gawker-1719002144" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">leaking a private text message thread</a>. The best excerpt: ad guy Andrew Gorenstein complaining about getting requests for comment from Gawker reporter Keenan Trotter and saying he's "not dealing with her," to which Craggs responds: "By the way, Andrew, Keenan is a male. You all should get to know the writers you just sold out." Trotter, naturally, <a href="http://gawker.com/tommy-craggs-and-max-read-are-resigning-from-gawker-1719002144" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">posted the memo containing the exchange</a> on Gawker Dot Com.</p>
<p><strong>Tip 9: Praise your colleagues (the ones who are good and not bad).</strong></p>
<p>Do they inspire you? Do they make "work" feel like "fun"? Are they the rare glimpse of sunshine in an otherwise toxic, journalistic-principle-violating cesspool of a company?</p>
<p>You probably don't hate everyone you're leaving in the dust, so take this opportunity to start wooing the writers you're going to want to poach for your next venture. It is important to use the word "inspire" here. For instance, as former Politico editor Rick Berke <a href="http://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2014/09/politico-executive-editor-rick-berke-resigns-195033.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">wrote in his resignation letter</a>, "I was inspired every day by your competitive drive, vast knowledge, creative ideas and relentlessness to dig deeper and reach higher." You may need to borrow some lines from the candle-lighting speech from your bar mitzvah.</p>
<p><strong>Tip 10: Don't pretend you resigned if you were actually fired.</strong></p>
<p>You're a journalist. Expose the truth behind your exit. In 2014, former <em>New York Times</em> editor Jill Abramson <a href="http://www.ibtimes.com/jill-abramson-didnt-want-go-refused-resign-despite-sulzbergers-offer-make-it-easy-her-1585745" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">admirably refused</a> to frame her termination as a resignation when publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. delivered the news. More recently, ex-Gawker writer Adam Weinstein <a href="http://adamweinstein.tumblr.com/post/124342415120/goodbye-to-all-that-gawking" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">cleared up confusion</a> about what appeared to be his resignation: Actually, he was fired—quietly, weeks ago—with the expectation that he would make it look like a mutual parting of ways.</p>
<p><strong>Tip 11: Celebrate! </strong></p>
<p>After investigative reporter Ken Silverstein resigned from The Intercept, he <a href="http://jimromenesko.com/2015/02/22/ken-silverstein-resigns-from-pierre-omidyars-first-look-media-blasts-dishonest-leadership/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">took his kid to a Wizards-Cavaliers basketball game</a>. Gawker's Tommy Craggs <a href="https://twitter.com/hdrewblackburn/status/623172294899138560">racked up a $500 Balthazar bill</a> on the company credit card.</p>
<p><strong>Tip 12: Don't apologize.</strong></p>
<p>This isn't that kind of resignation. You're in the right. Never forget it.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/how-rage-quit-your-prestigious-media-job-out-principle-355815Tue, 21 Jul 2015 16:07:09 -0400Get to Know the Naked Models of NYC Bodypainting Day (NSFW)http://www.newsweek.com/get-know-naked-models-nyc-bodypainting-day-nsfw-355359
<p>The heat this weekend in New York was so brutal that you might have thought about ditching your clothes entirely and slipping through the city <em>au naturel</em>.</p>
<p>For the men and women who took part in the <a href="http://bodypaintingday.org/nyc-bodypainting-day-2015-event/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">second-annual NYC Bodypainting Day</a>, that fantasy proved real. As the rain subsided on Saturday afternoon, about 100 models disrobed and got painted at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in the name of art and body acceptance. The painting went on for hours, as NYPD officers stood by and tourists gawked over the fences. Once it was finished, the models embarked on a naked march to the United Nations building.</p>
<p>The event is the brainchild of artist and body-painting icon Andy Golub, who says he got a permit from the parks department after <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/andy-golub-pro-bodypainter-changing-what-its-be-naked-new-york-352733">spending years fighting the police for the right to paint fully nude people in public</a>.</p>
<p>We spoke with a small portion of the models (and one of the artists) to figure out what motivates people to strip and get painted in a big public square.</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Kara Addington, 31, an actress, gets body-painted at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. As this photo was taken, an artist was painting the words "ALL LIVES MATTER" across Addington's abdomen. </span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Zach Schonfeld/Newsweek</span>
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<p><strong>KARA ADDINGTON </strong>(31 years old)</p>
<p><strong>How it feels to get painted:</strong> "It's kind of Zen. I just get to stand here. I'm her canvas today. It makes you feel beautiful, no matter what."</p>
<p><strong>On her family's reaction: </strong>"My mom loves it! I post pictures on Facebook, and she tells all of her friends. My aunt 'likes' everything I put on there. They always send me articles whenever they see anything about body-paint. I'm like, 'Guys, I'm not going to be on TV. I'm not going to be on <em>Skin Wars</em>.'"</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Abbey Jasmine Watt, 20, poses for tourists.</span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Zach Schonfeld/Newsweek</span>
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<p><strong>ABBEY JASMINE WATT</strong> (20 years old)</p>
<p><strong>How she discovered body-painting:</strong> "My boyfriend of two years broke up with me. I was at home in Tennessee visiting my parents, and they had two canvases in the shed. I was depressed and I covered myself in paint and sang songs while I did it and that's how Princess Multivitamin [her nickname in the body-painting community] was born."</p>
<p><strong>Why she gets painted in public: </strong>"Activism. I believe that nudity and sexuality don't have to go hand-in-hand. I think that the human body in its naked form is you. That's who you are. And it's a beautiful vehicle that houses our soul. And it's also about consent. I want my children to grow up in a world where their consent matters and where they can feel safe even if they're not wearing any clothes. And that's a big dream. I'll probably never see it happen."</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Spencer Lane, 27, celebrates her first time being body-painted.</span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Zach Schonfeld/Newsweek</span>
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<p><strong>SPENCER LANE</strong> (27 years old)</p>
<p><strong>Why she decided to get painted for the first time:</strong> "I'm an artist as well. I've been on both sides of the easel. I said that when the summer came around after this long and terrible winter I would do something a little more daring, and that's what this is."</p>
<p><strong>What she like about Bodypainting Day: </strong>"It's very liberating to have people of all different sizes and ages. It's not a modeling contest. That's not what it's about."</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Scott Reilly, 45, says he grew interested in body-painting after trying out naked yoga.</span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Zach Schonfeld/Newsweek</span>
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<p><strong>SCOTT REILLY</strong> (45 years old)</p>
<p><strong>What it feels like to be body-painted in public:</strong> "Great. I love it. There's not a better feeling than being naked."</p>
<p><strong>How he first became interested: </strong>"I was nervous when I first started. I started out by doing naked yoga. I had a great teacher named Cindy. She taught me how to come out of my shell."</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Nicole DuBow, 42, works as an office administrator in her clothed life.</span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Zach Schonfeld/Newsweek</span>
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<p><strong>NICOLE DUBOW</strong> (42 years old)</p>
<p><strong>What it feels like to get painted:</strong> "I'd say it's like jumping in a cold pool. There's that first 10 seconds of shock, and then you're just kind of hanging out. With a friend. Who's painting a flower on your butt."</p>
<p><strong>Is her family cool with it?</strong> "They're fine. They know who I am. It's not a huge surprise to anyone. My dad always says that I'm kind of a grown-up flower child. I'm happy he got the grown-up part, anyways."</p>
<p><strong>On her career when not being body-painted:</strong> "I'm an office administrator. So I'm clothed usually in that job."</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Alison Miller, 33, is an artist herself, when she's not being painted.</span>
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<p><strong>ALISON MILLER</strong> (33 years old)</p>
<p><strong>What it feels like to be body-painted:</strong> "It's the excitement of the artistic experience, being involved in something where I really feel like [her painter] is seeing my spirit and he's painting it on my body and we have this really unique opportunity to connect in the artistic process. As a dancer and a writer, it's a really exciting experience. It helps me connect with my spirit."</p>
<p><strong>Why she likes it: </strong>"I am a naturalist, if you will. I think that in and of itself allows us to be free. I think we spend a lot of time trying on different identities, different outfits, just trying to hide who we really are. This is such an opportunity to be seen."</p>
<p><strong>On her family's reaction: </strong>"They don't really understand it. At the same time, I'm also the free spirit of the family. I teach yoga, and I teach dance. And I help run an artistic program at an arts and healing center."</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Vann Godfrey is the artist painting Alison Miller.</span>
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<p><strong>VANN GODFREY</strong> (the artist painting Miller)</p>
<p><strong>How he became interested in painting people's bodies: </strong>"It goes <em>way </em>back to when I was in college. I recently had a chance to look back at some of the work I did in college. Even though it was watercolor on paper, it was figurative drawing with very bright color, very broad gestural strokes on top of a pencil rendering of a model. My watercolor instructor didn't really understand what I was doing. I didn't, at that point in time. I was on a collision course with body-painting before I technically knew that body-painting existed as an art form."</p>
<p><strong>Why he loves body-painting: </strong>"It's one of the few visual art forms that is social. It's a unique collaboration between artists and models. This is not just artwork that I'm producing. This is me working with her as a person. This is me working with her as a spirit. And letting that influence affect not only the visual brush strokes that I am putting on her, but also, once my painting process is done, she is going to carry this artwork throughout the rest of the day and move it and display it and interact with it and other people. No other art form really enables that."</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Andrew, 22, says there's "kind of a nice, cool feeling" to having his body painted.</span>
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<p><strong>ANDREW W.</strong> (22 years old)</p>
<p><strong>What it feels like to get painted:</strong> "It feels nice. On a hot day like this, there's kind of a nice, cool feeling to it."</p>
<p><strong>How he describes the colors he's wearing: </strong>"I'm kind of working in opposite to my co-model, John. We're sharing the same artist. She decided to just flip our colors. I guess it has something to do with nature, since he has a sun on him?"</p>
<p><strong>On his non-body-painting life:</strong> "I just graduated from college. I got a music degree. I'm currently working at a renaissance faire upstate."</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Rayne O'Reilly, 27, says her body-paint design is "basically about rebirth."</span>
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<p><strong>RAYNE O'REILLY</strong> (27 years old)</p>
<p><strong>On her first body-painting experience: </strong>"My first time was in a private photo shoot with just a photographer and a model. It was awesome. I love being naked. I love being nude. I love being natural."</p>
<p><strong>Why does she like it so much? </strong>"Without clothes, I have no masks on. What you see is what you get. There's just no hiding me."</p>
<p><strong>On the colors she's wearing: </strong>"I can tell you about the design. It is a lotus flower. It's basically about rebirth. Obviously the flower comes up from my womb, so to speak. I'm birthing a new generation, a new awakening."</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/get-know-naked-models-nyc-bodypainting-day-nsfw-355359Mon, 20 Jul 2015 17:22:01 -0400Watch Daniel Radcliffe Go Undercover as a Receptionisthttp://www.newsweek.com/watch-daniel-radcliffe-go-undercover-receptionist-354362
<p>Daniel Radcliffe managed to portray the world's most famous wizard in eight consecutive films, but when it comes time to work the reception desk at <em>Nylon </em>magazine, he's a flop.</p>
<p>Give Mr. Potter some credit for trying. In what amounts to a genuinely hilarious prank on unsuspecting office workers, <a href="http://www.nylon.com/articles/daniel-radcliffe-hidden-camera" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Nylon </em>convinced Radcliffe to serve as the front-desk receptionist</a> at its New York City headquarters for an hour, using a hidden camera to capture staff reactions. His duties—greeting guests, handling mail deliveries, distributing the bathroom key and smiling a lot—overwhelm and confound the actor. "I don't know how you fucking do this," he vents at the end.</p>
<p>Most staffers who approached the star did a double take—with one employee asking for a photo—but several appear to have been gleefully unaware, asking if he's "from the England office."</p>
<p>Here's the full video clip. (Watch to the end for a cameo from another surprise celebrity.)</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qM2uXBcfLCs" width="640"></iframe></p>
http://www.newsweek.com/watch-daniel-radcliffe-go-undercover-receptionist-354362Thu, 16 Jul 2015 13:54:18 -0400Why Is Everyone in New York Getting Naked for Andy Golub?http://www.newsweek.com/andy-golub-pro-bodypainter-changing-what-its-be-naked-new-york-352733
<p>It’s a Tuesday evening at the end of March, and Andy Golub is in his element.</p>
<p>Clad in jeans and an intricately patterned blue shirt, he’s onstage at the tiny Gene Frankel Theatre in Manhattan, painting. Seventies music, from Joni Mitchell to Rodriguez, floats from the stereo. There’s a murmur of mostly male fans and photographers scattered around the seats. And Golub’s canvas is a living, breathing (though, to her credit, not really moving) art student named Dylan.</p>
<p>Golub is New York’s most prolific body painter, and Dylan is one of his favorite models. “Every time I’ve painted Dylan I got a good painting,” he says from the stage. (She shares the fondness: “I always feel a good energy with Andy. I feel like I can read him well.”) Silent and expressionless, Dylan is nude except for a pair of black pants. A man sits down next to me and starts sketching her. Golub paints a yellow dagger down the center of her torso, black branches across her face, light blue circles over her breasts. A white spiral down her legs, dots across her back.</p>
<p>It’s a little like watching <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/2014/10/10/soothing-sounds-bob-ross-274466.html">PBS maestro Bob Ross</a> chip away at a snowy mountain, except every so often the canvas exhales or whispers to Golub and you’re reminded that she is a human being who’s probably cold and tired of cameras flashing in her direction. (She’s not, thankfully, ticklish.) Then the remaining clothes come off and, within an hour-and-a-half, the model’s nude figure is a gleaming wonderland of weaving, jungle-like stripes and colors, from curly, blue-tinted hair to blue- and green-striped feet. She poses for the cameras. This time the flashes are welcome.</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Andy Golub paints Dylan, who is one of his favorite models, at the Gene Frankel Theatre on March 24, 2015.</span>
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<p>Golub bears the distinction of being one of New York City’s few painters to have been arrested—at least recently—for his work. In fact, his rather public battles with the NYPD have made him a favorite for the tabloids and city blogs. It’s not what he paints that offends—it’s what he paints <em>on</em>: people. Naked people, of any body type or gender; most of them are not professional models. And in public, too—Columbus Circle, Times Square, wherever. If you’re daring enough to strip and patient enough to stand still, he’ll turn your bare human form into a psychedelic vessel of painted patterns.</p>
<p>Like Dan Smith and the <a href="http://gothamist.com/2014/04/11/dr_zizmor.php" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sinister-seeming Dr. Zizmor</a>, Golub’s eccentric public presence and persona have catapulted him toward fringe-level New York City icon status. But from an art-world perspective, his work is entirely ephemeral. You can’t stick a painted model in a museum. Golub doesn’t even think photos are sufficient to capture his work. What’s it like, someone asks from the theater seats, to create art that literally disappears down the drain when the model steps in the shower? He compares it to music.</p>
<p>“With music, it’s all about time,” Golub replies. “Art seems to be something that doesn’t have an element of time…. It’s all about the moment. It’s all about the experience of seeing the art.”</p>
<p>But he likes the fleeting element; as Axl Rose would say, nothing lasts forever. “The idea of it being transitory—I think it is a neat sort of element that you don’t get with art so much,” Golub says. “People capture it with photos. But everything in life is an experience.”</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Dylan shows off her body paint on March 24, 2015.</span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Zach Schonfeld/Newsweek</span>
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<p>Golub didn't invent this.</p>
<p>From <a href="http://www.historyofcosmetics.net/history-of-makeup/body-painting-history/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">ancient tribes in Asia and Africa</a> (where humans are believed to have adorned their bodies with clay images of gods and war) to the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair (where inventor Max Factor Sr. was arrested for decorating model Sally Rand in his newly minted movie makeup), body-painting has a long and illustrious cultural trajectory. The art form hit the mainstream with a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demi%27s_Birthday_Suit" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">1992 <em>Vanity Fair</em> cover</a> starring Demi Moore in a painted-on suit; by 2000, body paint had become a regular feature in<em> Sports Illustrated</em>’s annual Swimsuit Issue.</p>
<p>Difference is, Golub isn’t satisfied with art-fair exhibitions and photo shoots behind closed doors. He likes to bring his work—and the NSFW process—into the most public of venues, an aspect that has caught the attention of thousands of tourist passersby and the NYPD. And he takes it to extremes. On Saturday, he’s hosting the <a href="http://bodypaintingday.org/nyc-bodypainting-day-2015-event/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">second annual NYC Bodypainting Day,</a> a convergence of 100 fully nude models and 75 painters on 47th Street in Manhattan. His plan is to lead a naked march to the United Nations once the models are painted.</p>
<p>“When I’m out in public, in Times Square or whatever, it’s this confusing thing to people,” Golub says. “They’re so not used to seeing it that they need someone to say it and confirm it. People come up and they’re like, ‘What’s this for?’ And I’m like, ‘It’s public art!’ They’re usually pretty satisfied with that answer.”</p>
<p>Golub, who is 49, lives just north of the city in Rockland County, where he has served as chair of the Art in Public Places Committee, and was educated further upstate at Albany State University. With curly hair and a wardrobe of baggy shirts and jeans, his looks are much more typical than his line of work. He didn’t particularly expect to take this path, either—he started out as a business major and art minor before flunking an important business test and deciding to swap the two. He spent some years teaching in the public school system, and later he became fascinated with painting nonconventional objects: rocks, shoes, tables, even cars. It was when he tried painting a human-shaped mannequin that the lightbulb went off. He mentioned the idea to a friend at Artexpo New York in 2006 and got connected to some models. He gave body-painting a try.</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Model Gianna James, 21, poses for bystanders after being almost covered in body paint by Golub in Times Square, New York July 10, 2013.</span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Adrees Latif/Reuters</span>
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<p>“I remember just seeing my art walking around was this weird experience,” Golub recalls. “It made me feel like I should do more of it.”</p>
<p>He did, and things escalated quickly: painting in public. Painting fully nude models. Painting fully nude models in public. Painting a <em>lot </em>of fully nude models in public, all at once. Then: "Why not a large girl? What I realized when I started painting some large women is it actually changed the whole art."</p>
<p>Golub found that people were most shocked when he started recruiting male models. “If you paint men in public, people look at it as sort of a gay kind of thing. It was pretty clear that people were like, ‘What are you doing? This is crazy.’” Those reactions frustrate Golub, who describes his work as “the opposite of sex.” (“I'm showing in the middle of Times Square, in an environment that's filled with sexual advertising, someone who's using the body and creating art,” he insists.)</p>
<p>Then came the police drama. Golub has spent more time than anybody fighting for the right to paint naked models in New York. Public nudity is legal in the city, as long as it's part of “a performance, exhibition or show.” But in 2011, he and two of his models were arrested. Golub spent about 25 hours in jail. Another model, Zoë West, was arrested in a similar incident later that summer. Civil liberties attorney Ron Kuby took on Golub's fight pro bono and won. “I knew I was in the right,” Golub says, but when the <a href="http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20111014/midtown/charges-against-times-square-body-paint-artist-be-dismissed" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">charges against him were dismissed</a>, the condition was that he and his models would be arrested again if he tried painting fully nude models during the daytime. (A pointless restriction, one model laughs—“It's always daytime in Times Square.”) He played by those rules for a few years. But the implication that his work wasn't fit for children's eyes irked him.</p>
<p>So Golub reached out to the New York Civil Liberties Union, which contacted the city on his behalf. New York officials soon conceded that Golub can legally paint naked men and women in public any time of day. (Three caveats: He can’t do it in front of a Toys R Us; he has to announce where and when it’s happening in advance; and his models are required to leave their underwear on until right before that area is painted.)</p>
<p>The artist celebrated by securing a permit from the parks department and planning the first NYC Bodypainting Day in 2014. He’s still harassed by the police on occasion, but the cops in Times Square recognize him and his victory, and Golub says he’s more interested in painting than fighting the law anyway.</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Golub, flanked by blue-painted models at a public painting event</span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Michael Ip/Newsweek</span>
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<p>So what’s it like to strip and get painted? And why is Golub so flooded with fresh volunteers?</p>
<p>Every model is different—he repeats this a lot. “You can feel people who are positive and people who are negative,” he says. He’s fond of saying that it doesn’t matter what a person looks like but what their “spirit” is. With Dylan he gets a “good energy”—when he paints her, he can feel each of her muscles relax—but there are times when he can tell the subject isn’t in the right state of mind. Some are more interested in a sexual experience than an artistic one: “Their motive is not really about expression. We're sort of in a different place.” Others are a little too into the attention, and the constant chatting or mugging for the camera can interfere with Golub’s work.</p>
<p>For the model, as with most things in life, results may vary. At best, the experience could be a life-changing shot of body confidence, maybe a stimulating new hobby or secret pastime. At worst you could outrage your parents, get paint on your bed—maybe wind up naked in a police precinct.</p>
<p>So went the adventure of Zoë West, a professional model who has plenty of experience striking nude poses. There were cops on the scene the whole time West was painted in busy midtown Manhattan in 2011. They stood by bemusedly when the then-21-year-old removed her black G-string but pounced after Golub’s work was finished, arresting West and hauling her, naked, into a police van.</p>
<p>West remembers being handcuffed to a bench in the juvenile delinquents room for about 20 minutes before being handed some clothes. Her thought process: “How did I get here? How is this my life?” She laughs. “It was nerve-wracking, but I knew that I was protected.” Golub had warned her in advance that an arrest was possible but assured her the charges would be dropped, which they were. As a bonus, West’s ordeal blew up the tabloids, inspired a <a href="https://newyorkcityinthewitofaneye.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/315746_10150364343904083_685309082_9910555_831613863_n.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>New York Post</em> cartoon</a> and later landed her a <a href="http://www.metro.us/local/zoe-west-nude-body-paint-model-gets-15k-from-city-after-times-square-arrest/tmWlid---9fbT1tNoVybE2/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">nice payout from the city</a>. If West were pursuing a career in, say, investment banking, those NSFW Google results might have been a problem. But she was thinking about pursuing modeling full-time, and the publicity was the boost she needed.</p>
<p>“I'm always thankful that I had that experience with him,” West reflects four years later. “Because I'm going to remember it for the rest of my life. And it really kickstarted my career in a big way.”</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Andy Golub paints a model's face during an outdoor body-painting event.</span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Michael Ip for Newsweek</span>
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<p>For others, the rewards of body-painting are more personal than professional.</p>
<p>“I'm a naturist, but it was still a totally different experience to be painted in public,” says Felicity Jones, who runs the nudist organization Young Naturists America. “It’s, like, transformational. I’m still myself, but I’m this work of art.”</p>
<p>Golub has worked with models of widely varying physical shapes and health conditions. Recently he received interest from a person with Cerebral Palsy and another potential model in a wheelchair. Several years ago, he visited a hospital to paint Fredi Grieshaber, a 65-year-old woman with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer. In a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nZqV_c9img">video capturing the moment</a>, Grieshaber cries and says she's "going out with a bang." "It's a very freeing and liberating experience," Grieshaber says as Golub's paint livens up the hospital-gray setting. She died about two months after it was filmed.</p>
<p>Kiki Alston-Owens, a 41-year-old woman from Staten Island, says that the joy of being painted has helped her to cope with depression after losing nine children. (Doctors still don’t know what occurred during her pregnancies, or after, to cause her babies to die.) She has modeled for Golub twice in Times Square and twice during Halloween painting events. “When I’m out there, the paint becomes a barrier from the hurt, the pain, the sadness, the stress,” she says. “Everything that may be going on in my life. Once that paint is on, it’s like a whole new me. It’s like everything is absorbed in the paint.”</p>
<p>Alston-Owens put on weight after her losses and now weighs around 250 pounds. She finds it empowering to be a plus-sized model in public venues. “Just seeing their faces is like, ‘Wow! She really don't have no clothes on!'" Passersby stare like a deer caught in headlights. When the cops are nearby, she says, they might wait an hour before telling a thin model to get dressed. But with her, “within five minutes, it’s like: ‘That’s nasty. You need to cover up.’”</p>
<p>She won’t be obeying those orders. She’s now <a href="https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/amsterdam2015kiki/bodypaint-day-amsterdam-2015" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">raising money to afford a trip</a> to Amsterdam so she can participate in a body-painting event there in August.</p>
<p>“Body-painting helped to bring me out of my closet, out of my pain, out of my home. It helped me to get myself out there and exposed,” Alston-Owens says.</p>
<p>“It helped me to start seeing that even though my children aren’t here, there’s still beauty in me,” she adds. “That this weight, this stomach, these sagging breasts are not something that someone else will look at and say, ‘That’s obesity. That’s nasty.’ This is my story of survival. There’s a message behind all of this fat. There is a survival struggle.”</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Dylan shows off her body paint on March 24, 2015.</span>
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http://www.newsweek.com/andy-golub-pro-bodypainter-changing-what-its-be-naked-new-york-352733Thu, 16 Jul 2015 13:27:27 -0400Neil Young Pulls Music From Streaming Services Because of Low Sound Qualityhttp://www.newsweek.com/neil-young-pulls-music-streaming-services-because-low-sound-quality-354072
<p>In what has become a trend of high-profile artists railing against the music-streaming revolution, Neil Young says he's removing his music from streaming platforms.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://www.facebook.com/NeilYoung/posts/10155765667375317:0">note to fans</a> on his Facebook page, the songwriter says it's not because of the compensation models.</p>
<p>"It's about sound quality," Young writes. "I don't need my music to be devalued by the worst quality in the history of broadcasting or any other form of distribution. I don't feel right allowing this to be sold to my fans. It's bad for my music."</p>
<p>He adds that he might "give it another look" if the quality improves.</p>
<p>Young's audiophile tendencies are well established. He spent much of 2014 promoting PonoPlayer, a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/neil-youngs-no-compromise-music-player-audiophiles-fantasy-231361">high-quality digital music player</a> that he described as "that first blast of daylight when you leave a movie theatre on a sun-filled day." Naturally, this move can't hurt album sales from the Pono store.</p>
<p>Young is now the latest leader in a revolt against streaming models by prominent figures in the music industry. Taylor Swift removed her catalog from Spotify in 2014, and more recently <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/brief-history-taylor-swift-declaring-war-streaming-platforms-345546">convinced Apple Music to compensate artists</a> during an extended free trial. Prince recently <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/tonight-were-gonna-party-its-nineteen-nine-tine-349315">pulled his music from every streaming platform</a> except Tidal without explanation.</p>
<p>Other rock stars, including <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/07/spotify-thom-yorke-dying-corpse" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Radiohead singer Thom Yorke</a>, have railed against Spotify's business model in the past. In his note, Young acknowledges that his share "was dramatically reduced by bad deals made without my consent."</p>
<p>It's not clear if Young's music will remain available on any streaming services. As of right now, most of his albums can still be accessed on Spotify, so get your plays in while you can. Here's our guide to the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/top-ten-least-essential-neil-young-albums-349302">12 least essential Neil Young albums</a>.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/neil-young-pulls-music-streaming-services-because-low-sound-quality-354072Wed, 15 Jul 2015 13:46:47 -0400Harper Lee Might Have Written a Third Manuscripthttp://www.newsweek.com/lawyer-who-found-harper-lee-manuscript-suggests-there-may-be-third-novel-353347
<p>Does Harper Lee have a third novel hiding in the vault? </p>
<p>In a <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-i-found-the-harper-lee-manuscript-1436740810" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Wall Street Journal</em> op-ed</a> recounting how she stumbled upon the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/go-set-watchman-excerpt-published-ahead-novels-release-352209">soon-to-be-published</a> <em>Go Set a Watchman</em> manuscript, lawyer Tonja B. Carter hints that that novel may not be Harper Lee's last. The safe deposit box where Carter first discovered <em>Watchman </em>in 2011 also contained "a stack of a significant number of pages of another typed text."</p>
<p>Those papers could have been an earlier draft of <em>To Kill a Mockingbird </em>or <em>Go Set a Watchman</em>, which now serves as its sequel, despite having been written earlier. But Carter hints at another possibility: a third novel bridging <em>Mockingbird </em>and <em>Watchman</em>, which takes place about two decades later. She's not sure if that's the case:</p>
<blockquote><p>What of the other pages that have for decades sat in the Lord &amp; Taylor box on top of “Watchman”? Was it an earlier draft of “Watchman,” or of “Mockingbird,” or even, as early correspondence indicates it might be, a third book bridging the two? I don’t know.</p>
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<p>That mystery should be solved soon—Carter says experts will be examining the unknown box soon, under the author's supervision.</p>
<p>But <em>Go Set a Watchman, </em>which is set for release on Tuesday, should be enough Harper Lee for one summer.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/lawyer-who-found-harper-lee-manuscript-suggests-there-may-be-third-novel-353347Mon, 13 Jul 2015 18:36:54 -0400How Mad at The New York Times Is Harper Lee's Publisher?http://www.newsweek.com/just-how-mad-new-york-times-harper-lees-publisher-352965
<p><em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em> author Harper Lee is about to publish her first book in 55 years, and nearly everything we know about its content originated with a single source: a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/books/review-harper-lees-go-set-a-watchman-gives-atticus-finch-a-dark-side.html?smid=tw-bna" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>New York Times</em> review</a>.</p>
<p>That piece, written by veteran critic Michiko Kakutani and published four days ahead of the book's release date, was the first review of one of the year's most anticipated novels, <em>Go Set a Watchman</em>. It set off a furious wave of articles, think pieces and <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2015/07/13/atticus_finch_s_racism_in_go_set_a_watchman_vs_to_kill_a_mockingbird_how.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">parental anguish</a> stemming from Atticus Finch's <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/atticus-finch-depicted-racist-harper-lees-new-novel-352807">newly revealed racism</a>. And it was teased as an "exclusive"—a boast that <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=from%3Anytimes%20exclusive%20&amp;src=typd&amp;vertical=default&amp;f=tweets">rarely</a> appears on the <em>Times</em>'s main Twitter feed:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-cards="hidden" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Exclusive: A Times review of Harper Lee’s new novel, in which Atticus Finch has startling racist views <a href="http://t.co/PKGMleUBiC" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://t.co/PKGMleUBiC</a></p>
<p>— The New York Times (@nytimes) <a href="https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/619622497596637184">July 10, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Readers might assume that the <em>Times</em>—one of the country's top newspapers by circulation—managed to negotiate an exclusive early review with the book's publisher, Harper, the flagship imprint of HarperCollins. </p>
<p>Not so. Reached via email over the weekend, a Harper publicist told a different story: "Oh they broke the embargo! That's for sure!"</p>
<p>Turns out the newspaper snagged a secret copy and went live with the review without waiting for Harper's strict embargo to lift. "Our policy is that we do not honor embargoes if we obtain a book independent of publishers' official channels," explained Danielle Rhoades Ha, communications director at the <em>Times</em>. (Asked how the newspaper managed to get its own copy of the book, Ha didn't answer. Kakutani herself did not respond to our email either.)</p>
<p>The <em>Times</em>'s review prompted a <a href="https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=go+set+a+watchman+review" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">flurry</a> of other outlets to publish their own reviews, spinning the publisher's planned promotion schedule into a weekend of chaos. It's a cause of frustration for booksellers and publishing houses, though rarely one that involves a book as newsworthy as the <em>Mockingbird</em> sequel:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">So does that mean that it's only the NYT who have breached the embargo then? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/parforthecourse?src=hash">#parforthecourse</a></p>
<p>— Jon Page (@BiteTheBook) <a href="https://twitter.com/BiteTheBook/status/619775219318829056">July 11, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">It's disgusting that the almighty New York Times couldn't bring itself to respect the global embargo on Go Set A Watchman. They stole a copy</p>
<p>— Peter Donoughue (@peterdonoughue) <a href="https://twitter.com/peterdonoughue/status/619798212367421440">July 11, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>The Harper imprint is not happy about the turn of events—but not surprised either.</p>
<p>"Am I angry at <em>The</em> <em>New York Times</em>? I'm not angry, but I'm not happy," said Tina Andreadis, a senior vice president and director of publicity at Harper. "I think it does a disservice to consumers who are out there wanting to buy the book. They read a review and they want to buy the book."</p>
<p>In other words: Don't hate the player, hate the game. "It's not just <em>The</em> <em>New York Times</em>, it's everyone," Andreadis said. What Harper would really like to know is how the <em>Times </em>managed to procure its copy of the book.</p>
<p>The 89-year-old author, meanwhile, resides at an assisted-living home in Alabama. Lee famously shuns media attention; the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/mocking-bird-call-newsweeks-1961-profile-harper-lee-kill-mockingbird-304181">last time <em>Newsweek</em> interviewed her</a>, Dwight Eisenhower was president. </p>
<p>Andreadis denied <a href="http://www.npr.org/2015/02/04/383854514/harper-lees-friend-says-author-is-hard-of-hearing-sound-of-mind" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">speculation that Lee didn't want this book</a>, which was written before <em>Mockingbird </em>and shelved for half a century, to see the light of day.</p>
<p>"Our publisher just went to see her on June 30," she said. "She was pleased. She was happy."</p>
<p>But has Lee been keeping up with the hubbub online? Does the writer have an Internet connection?</p>
<p>"I have no idea," Andreadis said.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/just-how-mad-new-york-times-harper-lees-publisher-352965Mon, 13 Jul 2015 16:46:07 -0400David Letterman Came Out of Retirement to Mock Donald Trumphttp://www.newsweek.com/david-letterman-came-out-retirement-mock-donald-trump-352873
<p>Less than two months after <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/letterman-taught-world-sing-334283">retiring from late-night television</a>, David Letterman resurfaced for an important cause: making fun of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.</p>
<p>Sporting a new beard and a new Top 10 list, the former <em>Late Show</em> host made a surprise appearance Friday night at Martin Short and Steve Martin's stage show, <em>A Very Stupid Conversation, </em>during its San Antonio stop.</p>
<p>Letterman joked that he had no regrets about retirement—until Donald Trump <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-announce-2016-presidential-bid-343428">launched his presidential campaign</a>. "I have made the biggest mistake of my life, ladies and gentleman," he said before pulling an envelope out of his suit pocket. The comedian then launched into one of his signature Top 10 lists, themed around "Interesting Facts About Donald Trump." The routine managed to fit in jabs at Trump's ego, his controversial statements on immigration and (of course) his hair. Some highlights:</p>
<ul><li>"During sex, Donald Trump calls out his own name."</li>
<li>"Trump would like all Americans to know that that thing on his head is free-range."</li>
<li>"Thanks to Donald Trump, the Republican mascot is also an ass."</li>
</ul><p>Letterman also found time to pose for a selfie with Martin and Short:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">A big comedy night for Marty and me in San Antonio. Surprise guest, David Letterman. <a href="http://t.co/tuHSv7trb2" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/tuHSv7trb2</a></p>
<p>— Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveMartinToGo/status/619716230170030080">July 11, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Watch Letterman's first post-retirement stage appearance here:</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="480" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/lfuXYh-BFoc?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></p>
http://www.newsweek.com/david-letterman-came-out-retirement-mock-donald-trump-352873Sun, 12 Jul 2015 14:12:58 -0400Ennio Morricone to Write First Western Score in 40 Years, for 'The Hateful Eight'http://www.newsweek.com/ennio-morricone-write-first-western-score-40-years-hateful-eight-352851
<p>Ennio Morricone has not scored a Western in more than 40 years, but he's not retired from the genre quite yet.</p>
<p>The legendary Italian composer—who helped popularize the Spaghetti Western genre with iconic scores for <em>The Good, the Bad and the Ugly</em> and <em>Once Upon a Time in the West</em>—will return to the fold with an original score for Quentin Tarantino's <em>The Hateful Eight.</em></p>
<p>Director Tarantino (<em>Pulp Fiction</em>, <em>Inglourious Basterds</em>) <a href="http://deadline.com/2015/07/ennio-morricone-hateful-8-score-quentin-tarantino-1201474388/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">shared the news this weekend</a> at San Diego Comic-Con, where he offered fans a rare glimpse at footage from his forthcoming Western, which is set in Wyoming after the Civil War. Reporters turned to Twitter to express excitement at the prospect of a new Morricone score.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Tarantino rarely uses an original score, but he convinced Ennio Morricone to do HATEFUL EIGHT! His first western score in 40 years</p>
<p>— Kyle Buchanan (@kylebuchanan) <a href="https://twitter.com/kylebuchanan/status/619979540555698176">July 11, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Tarantino previously used several pieces composed by Morricone in 2009's <em>Inglourious Basterds</em> and 2012's <em>Django Unchained</em>, which <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/italian-composer-morricone-slams-tarantino-428954" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reportedly upset Morricone at the time</a>. The original score is notable because Tarantino typically prefers prereleased music, as in the famous <em>Pulp Fiction</em> dance scene set to Chuck Berry.</p>
<p>Joined by several members of the cast, Tarantino also revealed that <em>The Hateful Eight</em> will have a limited release in 70 mm screenings on Christmas Day, and that he plans to direct a third Western after this one.</p>
<p>For now, enjoy Morricone's <em>The Good, the Bad and the Ugly </em>theme—you'll recognize it even if you don't know it.</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="220" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AFa1-kciCb4?rel=0" width="640"></iframe></p>
http://www.newsweek.com/ennio-morricone-write-first-western-score-40-years-hateful-eight-352851Sun, 12 Jul 2015 12:30:18 -0400A Paralyzed Man Painted Harry Potter Using Only His Mouthhttp://www.newsweek.com/give-five-hundred-points-gryffindor-352819
<p>A 23-year-old English man managed to paint Harry Potter using nothing but his mouth to hold the brush.</p>
<p>Henry Fraser has been paralyzed from the shoulders down since he <a href="http://www.henryfraser.org/my-story/henry-fraser-my-story-part-1/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">dislocated his neck in a beach accident</a> when he was 17. These circumstances have not kept him from recently rediscovering his love for drawing and painting. His technique, though, is unorthodox.</p>
<p>Though he's only been painting for a couple of months, Fraser managed to produce this "mouth painting" of Harry Potter in five hours:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">My latest mouth painting. (Only able to paint using my mouth). It's <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/HarryPotter?src=hash">#HarryPotter</a>! <a href="http://t.co/FNE94c95AH" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/FNE94c95AH</a></p>
<p>— Henry Fraser (@henryfraser0) <a href="https://twitter.com/henryfraser0/status/618523251929686016">July 7, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Fraser, who lives in a small village in Hertfordshire, discoverd the ability after being stuck in bed with a recent illness.</p>
<p>"I was getting rather bored and found an app on my iPad that I could use for drawing by holding a stylus in my mouth and touching the screen," Fraser explained to <em>Newsweek</em>. "I loved it." Fraser now draws and paints with pencils and paint by fixing the utensils to a mouth stick. Because of his accident, he doesn't have the option of using his hands.</p>
<p>"It's funny, but without that illness I would never have rediscovered my love for drawing, painting and creating," the painter adds. "Adversity has given me a gift."</p>
<p>This particular portrait exceeded its creator's expectations—Potter author J.K. Rowling praised it on Twitter:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="und" xml:lang="und">Wow! <a href="https://t.co/6XNzhIVYMx" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://t.co/6XNzhIVYMx</a></p>
<p>— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/619598802354339840">July 10, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/henryfraser0">@henryfraser0</a> Unbelievable. Literally unbelievable!</p>
<p>— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) <a href="https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/619562303852298240">July 10, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Not bad, for a muggle.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/give-five-hundred-points-gryffindor-352819Sat, 11 Jul 2015 16:58:36 -0400Atticus Finch Is Depicted as Racist in Harper Lee's New Novelhttp://www.newsweek.com/atticus-finch-depicted-racist-harper-lees-new-novel-352807
<p>Harper Lee's new novel, <em>Go Set a Watchman</em>, might be an uncomfortable read for <em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em> fans, and not just because friends of the 89-year-old author <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/friends-say-harper-lee-was-manipulated-304884">have claimed she was manipulated</a> into publishing the sequel.</p>
<p>The new shocker: Atticus Finch, beloved father of Scout and the fictional hero of the <em>Mockingbird </em>story, is not so noble after all. <em>Watchman</em>, which was written before <em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em> and shelved when the publisher encouraged Lee to rewrite the story from young Scout's perspective, depicts the lawyer as a racist who once attended a Ku Klux Klan meeting.</p>
<p>This new portrayal, a dramatic departure from our view of the literary icon who defends accused black man Tom Robinson, is according to an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/11/books/review-harper-lees-go-set-a-watchman-gives-atticus-finch-a-dark-side.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">early <em>New York Times</em> review</a> of the embargoed novel. In that review, critic Michiko Kakutani writes that Atticus Finch makes bigoted statements such as, "The Negroes down here are still in their childhood as a people," and, "Do you want Negroes by the carload in our schools and churches and theaters?" Moreover, the character is said to thumb his nose at the NAACP:</p>
<blockquote><p>In “Watchman,” set in the 1950s in the era of the Brown v. Board of Education decision, he denounces the Supreme Court, says he wants his home state “to be left alone to keep house without advice from the N.A.A.C.P.” and describes N.A.A.C.P.-paid lawyers as “standing around like buzzards.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Watchman, which is described as an earlier version of <em>To Kill a Mockingbird</em>, "makes for disturbing reading," Kakutani writes. The revised portrayal is likely to affect the elderly Lee's legacy, commentators suggest, which is a curious twist considering it's not clear that Lee wanted the book published in the first place.</p>
<p>On Twitter and elsewhere, fans have been expressing shock at Atticus Finch's newly revealed racism:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Is that an earthquake? No, wait. It's just Gregory Peck rolling in his grave after reading Go Set a Watchman.</p>
<p>— Jay McInerney (@JayMcInerney) <a href="https://twitter.com/JayMcInerney/status/619928308344451072">July 11, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Really glad I haven't had a kid yet, because there's like a 30% chance it would've been named Atticus.</p>
<p>— Kevin J. Ryan (@wheresKR) <a href="https://twitter.com/wheresKR/status/619935977008693248">July 11, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Atticus grew older &amp; turned against the civil rights movement. Heart-breaking for fans of the 1st book, but the stuff of great literature.</p>
<p>— Joe Hill (@joe_hill) <a href="https://twitter.com/joe_hill/status/619701672923820032">July 11, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Naturally, it's tough to swallow that a hero—fictional or otherwise—has an ugly side. Whether that revelation does make for great literature isn't so clear; just a tiny handful of reviewers have yet read <em>Go Set a Watchman</em>, though an excerpt from the novel <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/go-set-watchman-excerpt-published-ahead-novels-release-352209">was published online</a> on Friday.</p>
<p>The book is out on Tuesday. Harper Lee herself prefers to avoid media attention and now lives in an assisted-living facility in Alabama. Read <em>Newsweek</em>'s <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/mocking-bird-call-newsweeks-1961-profile-harper-lee-kill-mockingbird-304181">1961 profile of the author here</a>.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/atticus-finch-depicted-racist-harper-lees-new-novel-352807Sat, 11 Jul 2015 15:15:04 -0400Harrison Ford Makes First Public Appearance Since Plane Crashhttp://www.newsweek.com/harrison-ford-makes-first-public-appearance-plane-crash-352764
<p>Actor Harrison Ford took to the stage at the annual San Diego Comic-Con convention this weekend, marking his first public appearance since he was <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/harrison-ford-injured-small-plane-crash-311854">injured in a plane</a> crash in March.</p>
<p>Appearing at a panel discussion with other cast members of the upcoming movie <em>Star Wars: The Force Awakens</em>, the actor was welcomed back with a standing ovation. Ford responded by downplaying the March 5 incident, when his plane made an emergency landing on a golf course in Venice, California and he suffered a broken pelvis and ankle.</p>
<p>"I'm fine," the 72-year-old <em>Indiana Jones</em> star <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/video/2015/jul/11/harrison-ford-comic-con-panel-star-wars-the-force-awakens-video" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">says in video of the event</a>. "I walked here, so how bad can it be?"</p>
<p>According to a <a href="http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/comic-con-2015-harrison-ford-807015" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Hollywood Reporter</em> account</a> of the event, Ford said that returning to the set of a <em>Star Wars</em> movie—where he reprises his classic role as Han Solo—"should have felt ridiculous" but instead "felt great."</p>
<p><em>Star Wars: The Force Awakens</em>, the seventh installment in the classic space film series, is due out in December. Here's video of the appearance, via <em>The Guardian</em>:</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://embed.theguardian.com/embed/video/film/video/2015/jul/11/harrison-ford-comic-con-panel-star-wars-the-force-awakens-video" width="560"></iframe></p>
http://www.newsweek.com/harrison-ford-makes-first-public-appearance-plane-crash-352764Sat, 11 Jul 2015 12:14:10 -0400Omar Sharif, Co-Star of 'Lawrence of Arabia,' Is Dead at 83http://www.newsweek.com/omar-sharif-star-lawrence-arabia-dies-83-352182
<p>Omar Sharif, the actor best known for major roles in <em>Lawrence of Arabia</em> and <em>Doctor Zhivago</em>, died Friday in Cairo at the age of 83. The cause of death was a heart attack, according to his agent Steve Kenis.</p>
<p>Sharif's son <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/film/2015/may/25/omar-sharif-alzheimers-lawrence-of-arabia" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">revealed in May</a> that the actor was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.</p>
<p>Born in Egypt in 1932, Sharif became a regular presence in Egyptian films of the 1950s and achieved wider stardom as a result of his role in the 1962 epic <em>Lawrence of Arabia</em>, his first English-language film. He also received an Oscar nomination and won a Golden Globe for that breakthrough role. Filmgoers particularly remembered one famous shot, in which he appears far off in the desert riding a camel.</p>
<p>After <em>Lawrence</em>, Sharif starred in the acclaimed epic <em>Doctor Zhivago</em> (1965) and <em>The Night of the Generals</em> (1967). He played Barbra Streisand's husband in the 1968 musical <em>Funny Girl</em>, which was banned in Sharif's home country because he played Nicky Arnstein, a Jewish man.</p>
<p>Sharif received a brief prison sentence and fine in 2003 for an altercation with a police officer in a Paris casino. He continued an active—if less prolific—film career up until 2013, when he appeared in the drama <em>Rock the Casbah</em>.</p>
<p>The late actor's philosophy of life, he <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/30/movies/30LYAL.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">told <em>The New York Times</em> in 2003</a>, was "living every moment intensely, as if it were the last moment."</p>
<p>Many fellow actors have paid tribute to Sharif on Twitter.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">My great friend Omar Sharif has passed away. I will always miss him. He was one of the best. D.E.P <a href="http://t.co/vzIFxYmujR" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/vzIFxYmujR</a></p>
<p>— Antonio Banderas (@antoniobanderas) <a href="https://twitter.com/antoniobanderas/status/619525483823284224">July 10, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">One of the greatest entrances of all time! Omar Sharif arrives in "Lawrence of Arabia"! <a href="https://t.co/jJO1c8JCI3" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://t.co/jJO1c8JCI3</a></p>
<p>— Morgan Fairchild (@morgfair) <a href="https://twitter.com/morgfair/status/619527370442080256">July 10, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Sad to hear about <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/OmarSharif?src=hash">#OmarSharif</a>. I grew up on Lawrence and Zhivago. A legacy with not one but multiple timeless classics.</p>
<p>— Josh Gad (@joshgad) <a href="https://twitter.com/joshgad/status/619513590320640000">July 10, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
http://www.newsweek.com/omar-sharif-star-lawrence-arabia-dies-83-352182Fri, 10 Jul 2015 12:03:55 -0400Behind 'Boulevard': The Making of Robin Williams's Moving Final Filmhttp://www.newsweek.com/behind-boulevard-robin-williams-last-screen-role-350515
<p>There is a scene midway through Robin Williams’s last film where his character describes a memory he can’t forget to a father who probably can’t hear it with a regret he can’t seem to bear. It’s about realizing he was gay, at the beach when he was 12. “It was my secret,” Nolan Mack (Williams), the protagonist in <em>Boulevard</em>, tells his comatose dad. “Suddenly, I'm 60 years old; it's like I'm still there, like nothing happened. It's like I'm still waiting for something I felt was promised to me that day.” In a brief moment, Robin Williams’s eyes go from nostalgia to anguish to fury and shame.</p>
<p>The scene is a convincing case for the late actor’s underrecognized dramatic abilities. And yet off-screen, while shooting the movie in Nashville in 2013, the actor was <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/doubtfire-daughter-lisa-jakub-talks-robin-williams-lightning-bolt-mad-improv-264836">his usual indefatigable self</a>.</p>
<p>“He was constantly making people laugh,” co-star Robert Aguire says. “He was generous, kind. He was so available to everyone around him…. There was no sense of greed or selfishness.” Aguire remembers a particularly grueling week toward the end of the shoot. The cast was drained. Then, in the middle of a scene, a large ice cream truck pulled up to the set. It was Robin Williams’s doing; he used the moment to thank everyone for putting so much work into the film. “It was such an embodiment of who he was to have this ice cream truck show up,” Aguire says.</p>
<p>At its best, <em>Boulevard </em>is wrenching. So is the knowledge of how the actor’s life came to a halt between filming and release. Williams probably didn't know that Nolan, the kind but conflicted 60-year-old banker, would be his last on-screen performance (he voices a dog character in the forthcoming <em>Absolutely Anything</em>). Shooting wrapped up about a year before <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/robin-williams-found-dead-california-home-264021">Williams’s 2014 death</a>. If the actor was hurting then, he kept it to himself—in public and on set.</p>
<p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Robin Williams stars alongside Kathy Baker in "Boulevard."</span>
<span class="image-credit" itemprop="copyrightHolder">Starz Digital/Camellia Entertainment</span>
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<p>Nolan, though, is definitely hurting—this we can see immediately. He and his wife (Kathy Baker) sleep in separate beds. His father is in a nursing home in a near-catatonic stupor. With a dignified sort of sad-sack grace, Williams plays an older man caught between a passionless marriage and the long-inescapable fact that he is gay. Of course he meets someone: a young hustler named Leo (played with a skittish energy by Aguire, a young Swiss-raised actor), but it’s not all <em>Pretty Woman</em>. Boulevard’s complexity stems from how it sidesteps a sexual tryst; Nolan’s relationship with the young man wavers between a platonic friendship and a paternal intervention. “It's almost a painful relationship,” says Aguire, who had to lose 35 pounds for the role.</p>
<p>“I have this fear or phobia of hurting people,” Nolan stutters to Leo when they first meet, but the effects of their relationship will wind up damaging every corner of his manicured life. The director, Dito Montiel (<em>Empire State</em>, <em>The Son of No One</em>), says he read Douglas Soesbe’s script and was drawn to the idea of an older character shattering the quietude and comfort he’s created. That interest was fueled by a personal experience: Montiel’s parents divorced when they were in their late 60s. “I remember saying, ‘Ma, what are you going to do?’” Montiel recalls. “And she was like, ‘I’m not done yet, you know?’” Nolan’s relationship with his wife is a tricky thing—it’s tender, but tense and wearied by deceit. We can tell that their love is real but has waned. Instead of acknowledging that, they halfheartedly plan for a couples’ cruise. “This may be the story of coming out, but I saw it as a story of letting go,” the director says. “Maybe just thinking of my parents, how hard it was for them to do that after all those years.”</p>
<p>Williams played losers and downers before Nolan. But the actor’s last stand isn’t a throwback to the age of <em>Mrs. Doubtfire</em> and <em>Jumanji</em>. There’s none of the manic confidence he wielded in <em>Dead Poets Society</em>, an early foray into dramatic territory. Here, he is unusually restrained. <em>Boulevard </em>becomes a glimpse at a Robin Williams we never really got to know: older, quieter, searching for something that can’t be satisfied in frenzied outbursts and impersonations. (When the script does sneak in brief hints of Williams’s hopped-up comedy, the effect is more awkward than satisfying.)</p>
<p>But in Montiel’s vision, the actor’s on-screen restraint lined up with Nolan’s character. “He’s trying to play a character that couldn’t express himself,” Montiel says. “When you hang out with Robin, he is that guy, jumping around saying crazy things. I knew the character couldn’t do that, and he did too…. [The character Nolan is] trapped. He’s not able to be himself.”</p>
<p>It’s fiction, but something about the theme of middle-age discontentment—coupled with the knowledge of Williams’s eventual suicide—gives <em>Boulevard </em>an eerie afterglow. So does a weirder coincidence involving real-life domestic discord. The Nashville house where Boulevard was filmed belonged to a married couple who really did sleep in separate bedrooms. The woman looked like Kathy Baker; her husband looked a bit like Williams. When the wife caught a glimpse of the plot, she went to the director crying and said, “Oh my God, my husband came out to me last year after 35 years.”</p>
<p>The couple’s only request: to be on-set when Williams and Baker filmed a scene confronting each other. So they were. “While we were filming that scene, they were sitting in the back, with headphones on, crying,” Montiel remembers. “Robin Williams came over to me and said, ‘This is getting too freaky for me, man.’”</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/behind-boulevard-robin-williams-last-screen-role-350515Thu, 09 Jul 2015 17:00:01 -0400There's Going to Be a Movie About the Supreme Court Gay Marriage Rulinghttp://www.newsweek.com/theres-going-be-movie-about-supreme-court-gay-marriage-ruling-351338
<p>Though the ink on the decision has hardly had time to dry, 20th Century Fox is setting in motion a movie about last month's Supreme Court case declaring gay marriage legal in all 50 states.</p>
<p>The film studio quickly snatched the life rights to plaintiff Jim Obergefell, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/08/business/media/fox-is-planning-to-make-movie-about-same-sex-marriage-ruling.html?smid=tw-share&amp;_r=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>The New York Times</em> reported Tuesday</a>, as well as Obergefell's lawyer, Al Gerhardstein. Obergefell, who filed suit against the state of Ohio <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/jim-obergefell-man-behind-supreme-courts-same-sex-marriage-decision-347314">when it wouldn't recognize his marriage to his terminally ill husband</a>, is also planning to write a book about his experience, with Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Debbie Cenziper. Fox has purchased the screen rights to that as well.</p>
<p>Given the success of Hollywood civil rights dramatizations <em>Selma</em> (2014)<em> </em>and the Harvey Milk biopic <em>Milk </em>(2008), it's not hard to imagine the movie being a critical and commercial winner. There's no word on a director or screenwriter, but Marty Bowen and Wyck Godfrey (<em>I, Robot;</em> <em>The Fault in Our Stars</em>) are set to produce.</p>
<p>It will be "at least two years" before the movie is ready, the <em>Times </em>says. But <em>The Onion</em> may have predicted it all along. The satirical news site's <a href="http://www.theonion.com/article/scalia-thomas-roberts-alito-suddenly-realize-they--32972" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">headline</a> the day of the ruling: "Scalia, Thomas, Roberts, Alito Suddenly Realize They Will Be Villains in Oscar-Winning Movie One Day."</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/theres-going-be-movie-about-supreme-court-gay-marriage-ruling-351338Wed, 08 Jul 2015 12:50:44 -0400'I Kissed the Oldest Woman in the World': Susannah Mushatt Jones's 116th Birthday Bashhttp://www.newsweek.com/i-kissed-oldest-woman-world-susannah-mushatt-jones-birthday-bash-351063
<p>Birthday parties for the very, very old are a lot like birthday parties for the very young. There are balloons and party hats everywhere, you won't find much booze, the birthday girl or boy usually doesn't have a lot to say, and everybody makes a tremendous fuss over the simple process of making it to a new age.</p>
<p>But Susannah Mushatt Jones's 116th birthday party, a Tuesday morning bash at the Vandalia Senior Center in Brooklyn's East New York neighborhood, exceeded any reasonable toddler's expectations.</p>
<p>Jones, recently <a href="http://www.yahoo.com/health/susannah-mushatt-jones-of-brooklyn-is-now-the-123372833857.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">confirmed as the oldest person in the world</a>, did not say much. Blind and wheelchair-bound, Miss Susie, as her family and caretakers call her, spent most of her birthday party with her head slumped downward, sometimes appearing to be asleep. At one point, she leaned into a microphone and muttered, "Thank you. I love you too."</p>
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<p>But the carnival of family members, local celebrities and seniors clad in colorful party hats spoke enough to fill a celebration that grew increasingly surreal as it went on. Players for the Brooklyn Nets performed backflips and handed Jones a custom-made basketball jersey, while Brooklyn Cyclones entertainer King Henry presented the supercentenarian with his own crown. A group of young campers took over the senior center floor for a children's dance routine in Jones's honor.</p>
<p>"You are a true American hero and a living legend right here in Brooklyn," Hakeem Jeffries, who represents the borough in Congress, told Jones, eliciting cheers. "In 1899, when [Jones] was born, William McKinley was president. By the grace of God, 116 years later, Barack Obama is president!"</p>
<p>State Assemblyman Charles Barron at one point leaned over and kissed Jones. "I kissed the oldest woman in the world and guess what?" he joked. "I'm leaving my wife and marrying Miss Susie."</p>
<p>Jones sat through the parade of exclamations, quietly chewing her favorite Wrigley gum.</p>
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<p>Born on July 6, 1899, and raised in Alabama before moving to New York during the 1920s, Jones is one of just two living people born during the 19th century. Although she has no children, about a dozen of her hundred nieces and nephews attended her party.</p>
<p>The secret to Jones's long life? "She eats a lot of bacon," the supercentenarian's nephew, Callie Mushatt Jones, told <em>Newsweek</em>. (Jones's massive birthday cake was decorated with strips of bacon and chicken drumsticks, her favorite foods.)</p>
<p>Niece Lois Mushatt Jones, 75, said her aunt enjoyed her favorite breakfast of bacon, eggs and grits on Tuesday. The secret of her longevity is spending time with family, the niece said.</p>
<p>"She doesn't believe she's 116," she added. "I said, 'Now you're 116.' She said, 'No, I'm not.' I said, 'You're the oldest woman.' She said, 'No, that's not true!' How many people are in the world? How can you see yourself as being the oldest? It doesn't seem possible."</p>
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<p>Another niece, Lavilla Mushatt Watson, described her aunt as "a wonderful person" who taught her to love everybody and to take care of yourself.</p>
<p>"She's not as alert as she used to be," Watson said after the party. "So when she said 'thank you,' she really wanted to please us. Sometimes she gets very angry and won't cooperate at all or open her mouth. But today she's been good.</p>
<p>"She's tired," Watson added. "Can you believe 116? She's <em>tired</em>!"</p>
<p>By that point in the day, the world's oldest person had retired to her room for a well-earned nap.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/i-kissed-oldest-woman-world-susannah-mushatt-jones-birthday-bash-351063Tue, 07 Jul 2015 17:56:32 -0400Tasting Beers With Psychedelic Pop Wizard Jacco Gardnerhttp://www.newsweek.com/sampling-beers-jacco-gardner-349754
<p>"I've probably tried every beer," Jacco Gardner brags.</p>
<p>That seems plausible. Gardner, a psychedelic musician with flowing hair and a voice that 50 years ago would have yielded him a spot in the British Invasion band of his choice, grew up in the Netherlands, where the beer flows like the Amstel river and pale lagers are king.</p>
<p>But he's grown to prefer the bars in Brooklyn. (Like Williamsburg's Barcade—"That's really memorable, arcade bars are not common in Holland.") The <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/how-gentrification-has-changed-williamsburgs-northside-festival-342891">Northside Festival</a>, which brings bands and tech panels to north Brooklyn, is at full blast, and Gardner is scheduled to be on stage with his backing band in two hours or so. We're in a Danish bar in Greenpoint called TØRST, and he's not getting out of here until he tries some of the worldly craft beers on the menu and gives his professional judgment.</p>
<p>He chooses Earth People, a dry-hopped farmhouse ale with lemongrass. "It’s good. I expected better. More of it, I guess. But it’s good... A bit too IPA-ish for me."</p>
<p>How about Falco? It's an American IPA brewed by Two Roads Brewing Co. "That's good. A bit of that same sort of IPA-ish vibe. It's hard to really put my finger on what I don't like about it. I can taste that it's a good beer."</p>
<p>Just as Gardner's nationality sets him apart at this festival—he's from the small town of Zwaag, later studied music production in the city of Utrecht and is based in the town of Hoorn—so does his melting pot of influences. Throw a rock in this bar, and you'll hit an indie-rock band inspired by Pavement, Guided by Voices, etc, etc. Gardner's new album, <em>Hypnophobia</em>, takes cues from the psychedelic studio wizards of 30 years prior, from Love and Soft Machine and Syd Barrett. (It was a documentary on the founding member of Pink Floyd that set Gardner on this technicolor-striped path.) The album title means "fear of sleep," and was inspired by an experience in between the worlds of sleep and being awake. On psych-pop tracks like "Outside Forever" and the dreamy "Brightly," Gardner's voice glistens with ghostly echo while the music betrays his obsession with vintage instrumentation: mellotrons, harpsichords, even a Steinway piano antique that Gardner purchased from a church. </p>
<p>Key changes and flute parts—it's not very punk. "Elegant" and "eerie" are the adjectives that spring to mind. Though he dislikes being pigeonholed as retro (or "a person who’s inspired by the past only," as he puts it), Gardner's mastery of that genre is firm—especially for a guy born in 1988. He tells me about his record collection, full of reissues of psychedelic favorites. And on a visit to the Rough Trade record store the previous day, he scored several additions: the <em>Fantastic Planet</em> soundtrack, a few records by the composer Bernard Fevre and something by New Zealand artist Connan Mockasin (whose name I mishear as "Common Moccasin"). "The moment I came in my record was on display, so I was like, yep, good record store," Gardner laughs.</p>
<p>Naturally, he takes to the craft beers with more colorful descriptions. On Graffiti Orange, which is a pale ale brewed with orange peel, vanilla bean and lactose: "That one is very smooth. There’s a lot to discover in that." After trying a German pilsner: "This is something I’ve never tasted before. A blend of flavors I’ve never had."</p>
<p>Asked if he is a time traveler from a distant past, Gardner's answer is less than convincing. "Not really, no," he says. "But for me it’s more about the music than the time it was from."</p>
<p>But there's something about the '60s. He has a theory to back up his fixation. </p>
<p>"This time that we live in, everything is very meta," Gardner explains in his quiet Dutch accent. "It's referencing times that already referenced other times. Referencing the '90s that referenced the '60s. Or referencing the '90s that referenced the '80s. In the '60s, it was referencing the Romantic times. Or Victorian times. Or classical music. It wasn't as close to each other. It was really out of the blue, combining harpsichord with psychedelic rock. I feel it was a more eclectic time when people didn't care as much about being cool by referencing something other people accepted as a cool thing."</p>
<p>He thinks for a moment.</p>
<p>"I’m guilty of referencing that," he concedes. "So I am kind of doing what I don’t like."</p>
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http://www.newsweek.com/sampling-beers-jacco-gardner-349754Fri, 03 Jul 2015 14:34:04 -0400The Top 12 Least Essential Neil Young Albumshttp://www.newsweek.com/top-ten-least-essential-neil-young-albums-349302
<p>Liking Neil Young can be rewarding. You can snag <em>Harvest</em>, <em>Rust Never Sleeps</em>, <em>Freedom</em>, maybe a few others for your collection, and sit back and enjoy.</p>
<p>But loving Neil Young is an exhausting and frequently confounding endeavor. If you include live releases, the guy has more than 40 albums to his name. They can't all be gold (or <em>After the G</em><em>old Rush</em>). Lots of them are brilliant. Many others are impulsive at best. As Young's manager jokes in his biography, <em>Shakey</em>, "If [Neil Young] watches TV on the road and there's a CNN special on Bosnia, Neil wants to do a record and a benefit within two days."</p>
<p>The latest, <em>The Monsanto Years</em>, released this week, falls into that grand, baffle-your-audience tradition. It's a collection of country-rock songs inspired by the artist's distaste with agribusiness giant Monsanto, GMOs and food politics. It continues a late-career burst of activity: Neil Young released two studio albums in 2012, with two more in 2014.</p>
<p>In that spirit, we present a guide to Neil Young's 12 least essential albums—oddballs, failed experiments and duds. Add them to your collection next month... or, eh, whenever you get around to it.</p>
<p><strong>12. <em>EVERYBODY'S ROCKIN</em>'</strong> (1983)</p>
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<p>It's hard to be too critical of <em>Everybody's Rockin'</em>—it was a hilarious stunt. Infuriated by his ventures into electronica and straight country, Neil Young's record label, Geffen, demanded a "rock &amp; roll album." So the artist donned a pink suit, started calling his band The Shocking Pinks and recorded an EP-length tribute to 1950s rockabilly. The sound of the album is hideous, with Buddy Holly-era clichés awash in early '80s reverb, while a very confused Young somehow found it in himself to write lyrics like, "Had a date with Donna / And Barbara Ann too / But I'm kinda fonda Wanda." <em>Everybody's Rockin' </em>today holds the honor of being the only Neil Young album that pissed Geffen off so much that the record company sued the artist for $3.3 million.</p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality: </strong>It's a joke! Of course it was. From <a href="http://www.thrasherswheat.org/tfa/mojointerview1295pt2.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Neil Young's own mouth</a>: "What am I? Stupid? Did people really think I put that out thinking it was the greatest fuckin' thing I'd ever recorded?"</p>
<p><strong>11. <em>THIS NOTE'S FOR YOU</em></strong> (1988)</p>
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<p>By 1988, Neil Young might have grown tired of genre-hopping/infuriating the audience he'd spent a decade cultivating. Instead, he christened his new band The Bluenotes and dove headfirst into uptempo, clear-eyed R&amp;B, with a horn section brassing and blaring and squealing on nearly every track. The LP has two near-classics: "This Note's For You," a spirited jab at corporate-rock sellouts that made waves after<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSSvzCNBvlQ"> its video was briefly banned</a> on MTV, and "Twilight," a ballad that uses the horn section as a tool rather than a prop. Also on the album: five songs that sound a whole lot like "This Note's For You," and three that sound like "Twilight." The rock tracks feel like a dry run for Young's proper comeback, the following year's <em>Freedom</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality: </strong>The video for "This Note's For You" contains a hilarious send-up of Michael Jackson's Pepsi-sponsored pyrotechnics disaster.</p>
<p><strong>10. <em>GREENDALE </em></strong>(2003)</p>
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<p>Neil Young's first and last rock opera, which also resulted in a film and an elaborate tour, was a polarizing beast. The story concept is a confoundingly complex yarn about a family tragedy in a fictional California town, complete with a grandpa dying and a teenager running away. It's so intricate that Neil Young barely seems to have had time to write, or produce, songs to go along with it. On <em>Greendale</em>, he and Crazy Horse mostly amble along on half-baked two- or three-chord grooves, with minimal changes and rhythm guitar parts that literally cut out when the solo cuts in. The melodies are anemic at best; many of the songs stretch past the 6- or even 10-minute mark. The music critic Mark Prindle <a href="http://markprindle.com/young.htm#greendale" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">has a theory</a> that the unfinished nature of the songs might be some sort of meta-commentary on the creative process itself. Or perhaps it's a revolt against the tightly orchestrated rock operas of the <em>Tommy</em>/<em>Quadrophenia </em>era. But just as a parody of schmaltzy country-western still sounds like schmaltzy country-western (see: <em>Old Ways</em>), <em>Greendale </em>could have used either a lot more or a lot less work.</p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality:</strong> The megaphone parts in "Be the Rain."</p>
<p><strong>9. <em>LONG MAY YOU RUN</em></strong> (1976) </p>
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<p>Should this list seem unfairly tilted toward Neil Young's more recent output, here's a reminder that there were some clunkers in his first solo decade. Except this album's sputtering mediocrity wasn't Young's fault—assuming Stephen Stills grabbed Young at gunpoint and demanded they put out a joint album. Shakey's tracks, from the car-obsessed title cut to the gorgeous "Fontainebleau," are just fine. The Stills-penned songs, though, traffic in filthy-smooth late-'70s jazz-rock. "Make Love To You" (chorus: "I want to make love to you / Yes, it will feel all right / I want to make love to you / Girl, it will take all night") would shame even Steely Dan.</p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality:</strong> Neil Young.</p>
<p><strong>8. <em>AMERICANA</em></strong><em> </em>(2012)</p>
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<p>Neil Young got Crazy Horse back together for <em>this</em>? The songs are unambitiously arranged covers of American (and Canadian) schoolyard standards. Some of them drag on forever (as the album seems to, though it's not quite 60 minutes). Prolific though he is, Young rarely releases two studio albums in one calendar year. In this instance, though, the Horse-backed <em>Psychedelic Pill</em> came just five months later, and helped to wash away the taste of <em>Americana</em>.</p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality: </strong>The album art illustrations (booklet included) are impressively intricate.</p>
<p><strong>7. <em>THE MONSANTO YEARS</em></strong> (2015)</p>
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<p>Young's agriculture-themed latest has the defining characteristics of his weirdest post-2000 albums: It's political, musically simplistic and above all aggravated. He reprises his <em>Fork in the Road</em>-era talk-singing, and doesn't beat around the topic at hand. With assistance from Willie Nelson's sons, there are some nice, fuzzy barn-stompers ("A New Day for Love," "If I Don't Know"). But the deeper the album digs into GMOs, Starbucks ("A Rock Star Bucks a Coffee Shop"—get it?) and the titular corporation, the more the music seems secondary to the politics. "Wolf Moon" is the sort of <em>Harvest</em>-lite ballad Neil Young could have written in his sleep. Which he might have.</p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality: </strong>The album <a href="https://www.billboard.com/articles/videos/original-programs/6598230/neil-young-corporate-targets-respond-to-the-monsanto-years-album" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">probably pissed off some Monsanto/Walmart/Chevron bigwigs</a></p>
<p><strong>6. <em>ROAD ROCK VOL. 1: FRIENDS &amp; RELATIVES</em></strong> (2000)</p>
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<p>Twenty-one years after <em>Live Rust</em>, nine years after <em>Weld </em>and just three years after <em>Year of the Horse</em>, our hero issued yet <em>another </em>lengthy, jam-heavy live album. There's nothing particularly bad about this hour-plus disc—it's just inexplicably redundant. Various of Young's relatives join in on the vocals, and The Pretenders' Chrissie Hynde surfaces for a rousing "All Along the Watchtower" cover. But does anyone really need another 18-minute "Cowgirl in the Sand"? </p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality: </strong>Listen to Hynde dueting with those leathery guitar squalls on "All Along the Watchtower." </p>
<p><strong>5. <em>SILVER &amp; GOLD</em> </strong>(2000)</p>
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<p>Speaking of redundant, <em>Silver &amp; Gold </em>was billed as Neil Young's return to folkie rambles after the noisy '90s. Fans hoped for another <em>Harvest Moon</em> or <em>Comes a Time</em>, but the bulk of these tracks aren't worthy of Side 1 <em>Hawks &amp; Doves</em>. They're just kind of... there. Gentle and nostalgic (see: "Buffalo Springfield Again"), but hardly stirring. "I feel like making up for lost time," Young sings on the breezy opener, but it seems more like he's just passing it. Speaking of passing the time, the album cover photo was taken with a Game Boy Camera. </p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality: </strong>The wistful title track, which had been floating around since the early 1980s.</p>
<p><strong>4. <em>OLD WAYS</em></strong> (1985)</p>
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<p>A disclaimer: I'm an apologist for Neil Young's '80s output—<a href="http://www.popmatters.com/feature/135763-defending-the-trick-of-disaster-neil-youngs-trans-reconsidered/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Trans </em>is warped genius</a>, <em>Everybody's Rockin' </em>is far too funny to hate and 1986's <em>Landing on Water</em> is underrated big-beat rock. But <em>Old Ways</em>, the good-ol' country record Neil Young wanted to put out in 1982 before Geffen said "Nah," is unbearably schmaltzy. For an artist who prefers live recordings, the album is strikingly overproduced, while its songs are steeped in tired Americana tropes about cowboys ("Are There Any More Real Cowboys?") and the farming lifestyle ("Old Ways"). Young always dabbled in country-western without diving into sentimentality or cliché, so what happened? "The Wayward Wind" drenches Gogi Grant's No. 1 hit in Hollywood strings, while the cringey I'm-a-dad track "My Boy" could have been written by Barry Manilow. </p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality: </strong>Farm Aid was for a good cause, we suppose.</p>
<p><strong>3. </strong><em><strong>FORK IN THE ROAD </strong></em>(2009)</p>
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<p>In 2008, I went to see Neil Young perform at Madison Square Garden. He was in a crowd-pleasing mood—"Hey Hey, My My," "Cortez the Killer," "Cinnamon Girl" all within the first half hour. Then he said something about auditioning new songs for his old record company and unapologetically launched into a flurry of unfamiliar songs about cars and bailouts. This wound up being <em>Fork in the Road</em>, a rootsy concept album about automobiles and politics and the artist's own Lincvolt project that feels particularly ornery and undercooked, even by <em>Greendale </em>standards. The cover art is a grainy cell phone image of Young scowling in a cowboy hat; the most memorable track finds the artist intoning "Cough up the bucks! Cough up the bucks!" over and over in time with a guitar-and-drums groove that seems to have taken 10 minutes to compose. (There's a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqRxdmRz_8o">hysterical video</a> that consists of Young lip-synching while reading <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> in a limo. That's it—nothing else happens.) The title track rides along on a three-chord blues phrase for six minutes while Neil Young mumbles lyrics like, "I'm a big rock star / My sales have tanked / But I still got you / Thanks / Download this / It sounds like shit." Indeed. Naturally, it was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grammy_Award_for_Best_Solo_Rock_Vocal_Performance" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">nominated for a Grammy</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality: </strong>There's the aforementioned "Cough Up the Bucks." Plus, in characteristically unpredictable fashion, Young followed up this mess with his best album in years—2010's <em>Le Noise</em>.</p>
<p><strong>2. <em>ARC </em></strong>(1991)</p>
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<p>True, <em>Arc </em>is not so much an album as an experiment that was initially—and ought to have remained—a bonus disc sold in a package with 1991's fantastic live set <em>Weld</em>. But it's now <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Arc-Neil-Young-Crazy-Horse/dp/B000002LRQ/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1435831416&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=arc+neil+young" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">available for individual purchase</a> and listed on AllMusic as such, so we're including it. Some background: <em>Weld </em>is a two-disc collection of rock songs recorded on Neil Young &amp; Crazy Horse's righteously noisy 1991 tour. <em>Arc </em>is a bizarre, 35-minute collection of intros, outros, feedback and spare sounds from that same tour. Young called it "the sound of the entire band being sucked into this little limiter, being compressed and fuckin' distorted to hell." In small doses, it's an intriguing sonic document of just how much unholy racket Neil Young can coax from that amplifier. But beyond one or two curiosity spins, listening to it will make you go mad. Reviewers often liken it to Lou Reed's <em>Metal Machine Music</em>, but it's also a little like a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6fswocMBdM">45-minute compilation of Fugazi stage banter</a> available on YouTube. Which would have been a nice strategy had <em>Arc </em>been released 15 years later; this collage feels more suited to a YouTube mastercut than a live album.</p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality:</strong> When Young tracks the "Like a Hurricane" vocals over the collapsing sludge, there's an eerie effect to behold.</p>
<p><strong>1. <em>PRAIRIE WIND</em></strong> (2005)</p>
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<p><em>Silver &amp; Gold</em> showed that Neil Young's worst albums weren't necessarily his weirdest experiments—they could also simply be boring. <em>Prairie Wind</em> puts that theory to a test. Interrupted by a brain aneurysm and loosely themed around nostalgia, the album invokes that saddest of creatures, the "return to form." It's like a glimpse into an alternative universe where an aging Neil Young plays it safe, behaving himself like a Boomer favorite should and releasing a tepid, agreeable record like this one every 3–4 years. "No Wonder" is a timely but dull ode to mortality, "He Was the King" a spirited but dull tribute to Elvis, "This Old Guitar" a gentle but dull love song for an inanimate object that barely hides the fact that it's just rehashing the riff from "Harvest Moon." (Neil Young may be the only songwriter to have written a song about a guitar without bothering to come up with a new guitar part.) <em>Living With War</em>, the protest-rock quickie Young released eight months later, was criticized for sounding rushed. At least that one has a pulse.</p>
<p><strong>Redeeming quality: </strong>Your dad loves it. </p>
<p><strong>BONUS FEATURE: </strong>Five sorely underrated Neil Young records that deserve another listen: <em>Re-ac-tor</em>, <em>Trans</em>, <em>Landing on Water</em>, <em>Sleeps with Angels, Living with War</em>.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/top-ten-least-essential-neil-young-albums-349302Thu, 02 Jul 2015 15:12:43 -0400Prince Just Pulled His Catalog From Streaming Platforms—Except Tidalhttp://www.newsweek.com/tonight-were-gonna-party-its-nineteen-nine-tine-349315
<p>|UPDATED| Just when it seemed like artists and streaming services <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/brief-history-taylor-swift-declaring-war-streaming-platforms-345546">were starting to get along</a>, Prince appears to have removed his entire catalog from every streaming platform other than Tidal.</p>
<p>Many of the artist's most iconic Warner Bros. albums—including <em>Dirty Mind</em>, <em>1999 </em>and <em>Purple Rain</em>—were available to stream as recently as earlier this week. Prince's publisher has since pulled the catalog, according to a message that appears in Spotify:</p>
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<p>The music isn't available on Google Play, Rdio or the brand new Apple Music either. Curiously, the shift happened the same day Prince released a <a href="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/hear-princes-psychedelic-new-song-hardrocklover-20150701" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">new rock track</a>:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Amusingly, <a href="https://twitter.com/Prince3EG">@Prince3EG</a> also chose today to pull all his albums off of Apple Music, Spotify, Rdio &amp; Google Play. <a href="http://t.co/PPdziyUyxy" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pic.twitter.com/PPdziyUyxy</a></p>
<p>— Anil Dash (@anildash) <a href="https://twitter.com/anildash/status/616307317940854784">July 1, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Prince's music remains available on Tidal, hinting at a possible exclusive deal. Tidal, the Jay Z-led streaming service, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/will-jay-zs-tidal-convince-people-pay-streaming-music-318469">launched in late March to mixed reviews</a>.</p>
<p>The reason for the sudden change of heart isn't clear, but Prince's ambivalence towards various engines of the music industry—<a href="http://mashable.com/2010/07/05/prince-the-internet-is-over/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">as well as the Internet</a>—is well-established. (He famously doesn't allow his music to appear on YouTube anymore.) Just last week the artist tweeted select lines from a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/25/taylor-swift-is-the-new-prince-the-artist-that-tamed-the-corporate-giant.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Daily Beast</em> article</a> comparing his feud with Warner Brothers to Taylor Swift's battle with Spotify and Apple Music:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">"Essentially, streaming has offered labels the ability to pay themselves twice while reducing what is owed to artists...</p>
<p>— Prince3EG (@Prince3EG) <a href="https://twitter.com/Prince3EG/status/614212927709577216">June 25, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">...from pennies on the dollar to fractions of pennies on the dollar." - The Daily Beast</p>
<p>— Prince3EG (@Prince3EG) <a href="https://twitter.com/Prince3EG/status/614213004708569088">June 25, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Maybe Prince has soured on streaming for good. But with Taylor Swift and <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/acdc-finally-puts-music-streaming-services-348682">AC/DC</a> coming to Apple Music, <a href="http://www.last.fm/music/Prince/_/It's+Gonna+Be+Lonely" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">it's gonna be lonely</a>.</p>
<p><em>Correction: The story has been updated to reflect that Prince's music remains available on Tidal.</em></p>
http://www.newsweek.com/tonight-were-gonna-party-its-nineteen-nine-tine-349315Wed, 01 Jul 2015 18:51:31 -0400The Surprising History of the Phrase 'Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve’http://www.newsweek.com/surprising-history-phrase-adam-and-eve-not-adam-and-steve-348164
<p>At 16, Craig Chester fell in love with a boy in his suburban Dallas church.</p>
<p>It was the early 1980s—hardly a hopeful time for gay acceptance in the South—and Chester still remembers what his pastor told him when he found out about the doomed love: "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." Then he quoted a verse from Leviticus.</p>
<p>"I think my preacher or pastor was the first person I heard saying it," says Chester, who grew up in a born-again Christian family. "There were starting to be gay characters on television. They would have seminars where people would come in and give lectures on what was going on in L.A. and New York and the gay agendas. I remember hearing stuff like that growing up and feeling a lot of shame."'</p>
<p>Chester tried to kill himself soon after, cutting his wrists in the high school bathroom. He's now a filmmaker; the first movie he wrote was the gay romantic comedy <em>Adam &amp; Steve</em>.</p>
<p>For decades, the right-wing fight to keep gay couples from getting married—which <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-gay-marriage-legal-all-50-states-347204">culminated in defeat</a> with last Friday's Supreme Court decision—has returned again and again to that single catchphrase: "God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve." Or: "It's Adam and <em>Eve</em>, not Adam and Steve." If you were an alien wading into LGBT debates for the first time, you'd think it were a paragon of logic and stone-solid proof. (It's not.) But there's a lot packed into such a succinct homophobic mantra: God. Religion. Mocking same-sex relationships. Idealizing heterosexual partnership as the bedrock of, literally, the human race.</p>
<p>The line dates back further than you might expect, appearing long before same-sex marriage became a viable political goal. And tracing its more recent history reveals a curious trend: LGBT people reclaiming "Adam and Steve" as a positive expression of their own.</p>
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<p>The first known appearance of "Adam and Steve" came in 1977, in what would become its natural habitat: a picket sign at an anti-gay rally. This particular protest brought 15,000 "pro-family" spectators to an arena in Houston, where burgeoning Religious Right icons like Phyllis Schlafly and National Right to Life Committee founder Mildred Jefferson railed against homosexuality, abortion and the National Women's Conference happening five miles away. The master of ceremonies was a businessman named Lee Goodman, who proclaimed it the "most significant day in the history of our country" and who <a href="http://www.legacy.com/funerals/greenwood-fortworth/obituary.aspx?pid=173516042" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">died</a> six months ago after <a href="http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/03/02/25155.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">being sued</a> for ponzi-scheming more than 50 investors.</p>
<p><em>The New York Times</em> <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E05E3D6143CEF31A25753C2A9679D946690D6CF" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">published a Nov. 19, 1977 report</a> that quoted some of the protest signs: "E.R.A. Is a Turkey," "Not Gay, But Happy People—Happy, Texas" and, of course, "God Made Adam and Eve, Not Adam and Steve."</p>
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<p>Whoever wrote the slogan was probably going for a snappier take on "If God had wanted homosexuals, he would have created Adam and Freddy," which was <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=6pCEjNJexFYC&amp;q=steve+#v=snippet&amp;q=steve&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">scrawled by a San Francisco graffiti artist</a> in 1970 and <a href="http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20068010,00.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">parroted by anti-gay activist Anita Bryant</a> (who swapped out "Freddy" for "Bruce") in <em>People </em>magazine in 1977.</p>
<p>But if you were to guess who first gave the phrase wider national exposure, you'd probably get it right on the first or second try: the late televangelist Jerry Falwell, of "<a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121322" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Gays Caused 9/11</a>" fame. Falwell used it in a 1979 press conference that was written up in <em>Christianity Today</em>. In the conservative <em>Review of the News</em> that year, he was <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=qarxAAAAMAAJ&amp;q=%22adam+and+steve%22&amp;dq=%22adam+and+steve%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=YK2RVbSJIInm-AGxs6rYBw&amp;ved=0CEEQ6AEwCA" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">quoted</a> as saying, "God didn't create Adam and Steve, but Adam and Eve." By the early '80s, this was being touted as one of the pastor's favorite lines, appearing with slightly different wording in <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=s1ExAQAAIAAJ&amp;q=%22adam+and+steve%22&amp;dq=%22adam+and+steve%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=O32SVei3GoapgwT04IXIDA&amp;ved=0CD8Q6AEwBw" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>TV Guide</em></a> and <a href="https://books.google.com/books?ei=O32SVei3GoapgwT04IXIDA&amp;id=KlhXAAAAYAAJ&amp;dq=%22adam+and+steve%22&amp;focus=searchwithinvolume&amp;q=%22adam+and+steve%22" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Esquire</em></a>. (Bizarrely, Martin Amis <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive/pdf?res=9E06E5DB1F31E432A25754C0A9649D94619FD6CF" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">quoted Falwell's favorite refrain approvingly</a> in a 1980 <em>New York Times</em> book review.)</p>
<p>From there, it just spread. Conservative congressman William E. Dannemeyer latched onto the slur, as noted by a 1986 <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1986-07-06/local/me-23093_1_bill-dannemeyer" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>Los Angeles Times</em> profile</a>. A Massachusetts politician, Roger Goyette, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1985/09/24/us/around-the-nation-massachusetts-rejects-homosexual-rights-bill.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">used it to block gay rights legislation</a> in 1985. "Adam and Steve" started appearing prominently in books both by and about the thriving Religious Right. "HOMOSEXUALITY: Adam and STEVE" was a chapter title in Michael Youssef's 1986 book "<em>Leading the Way: The Church or Culture?</em>" Strangest of all, rocker Little Richard used it to renounce his own "gay lifestyle." Here's a 1986 appearance in <em>Jet </em>magazine:</p>
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<p>Around this time, Craig Chester served as a teen missionary. "We used to go down to the gay bars in Dallas and try to save the gays," he says. After he'd come out and moved to New York, he returned to Dallas and attended a gay pride parade. "There was a group of protesters. They had a 'God created Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve' placard. Because I had been religious, I went over and just had a debate with one of them." </p>
<p>By the 1990s, the phrase was ubiquitous. It popped up twice in <em>Newsweek</em>—including in a <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/better-or-worse-193408">1993 story</a> predicting same-sex marriage—and once in a 1996 <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=TuECAAAAMBAJ&amp;pg=PA21&amp;dq=%22Adam+and+Steve%22&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ei=wauRVa7cIMr3-QHF97-ADQ&amp;ved=0CCYQ6AEwAjgK#v=onepage&amp;q=%22Adam%20and%20Steve%22&amp;f=false" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><em>New York</em> magazine profile</a> of Senator Jesse Helms. In a 1998 book, religious scholar Rebecca T. Alpert identified it as having become "an important slogan for the antigay movement," noting its presence on placards, bumper stickers and television. Gay-bashing politicians have continued to return to it ever since. In a memorable instance, Parliament member David Simpson botched the quote during a 2013 debate on same-sex marriage in Great Britain. "In the Garden of Eden it was Adam and Steve," he said to unintended laughs. </p>
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<p>But something changed in the '90s: LGBT writers and supporters started taking "Adam and Steve" back. In his 1994 novel <em>Just As I Am</em>, the writer E. Lynn Harris mocked the expression. One of the book's characters puts it bluntly: "If I hear God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve one more time I'm going to croak. Who thought of that stupid ass shit? Who the fuck is Steve anyway?"</p>
<p>Then, in <em>The Most Fabulous Story Ever Told</em>, a 1998 play by the openly gay playwright Paul Rudnick, God <em>does </em>make Adam and Steve—as well as a lesbian couple named Jane and Mabel.</p>
<p>"I remember that it was very commonly used by a lot of evangelical preachers," Rudnick says. "They'd always be very jolly and condescending, as if you could dismiss all gay lives with a kind of tired punchline." So began <em>The Most Fabulous Story</em>: "I remember thinking one day, what if you took these preachers at their word? What if God did make Adam and Steve?"</p>
<p>Naturally, the "demented romantic comedy" spawned protest among the fundamentalists it was meant to mock. But Rudnick says the strongest objections came from those who hadn't seen it. "I've found that deeply religious people, people who were raised in religious families, are often the greatest fans of the play," he says. "It's been actually a wonderful way into those conversations."</p>
<p>Craig Chester was one such gay person raised in a religious family, and around the time that <em>The Most Fabulous Story</em> appeared, he went undercover at an "ex-gay" camp in order to write a screenplay about the <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/ex-ex-gay-pride-249282">gay conversion movement</a>. At one workshop, a purportedly converted gay man announced that God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve. Another man announced that his name was Adam and his ex-boyfriend was a Steve. "I thought, they <em>were </em>Adam and Steve," Chester says. "This guy and his ex were actually Adam and Steve before he came to try and change who he is.</p>
<p>That realization prompted <em>Adam &amp; Steve</em>, the movie Chester wrote, starred in and directed in 2005: a comedy about—and named after—a couple named Adam and Steve. "God made Adam and Eve, and I'm gonna make Adam and Steve," he says of his thought process. He likens it to how gay people reclaimed the word "queer" in the '90s. "It's a phrase that's been around me my whole life. To take it and make it into the title of a film felt really empowering." Chester remembers filming the gay wedding sequence in 2004: "It was this sad, poignant, kind of sweet day on set, because it was a fantasy sequence." (A real-life Adam and Steve, by the way, married soon after—sort of. Same-sex marriage was not yet legal in New York in 2006. Adam Berger and Stephen Frank's <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/17/fashion/weddings/17vows.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">commitment ceremony</a>, and fairytale love story, appeared in <em>The New York Times</em>' weddings page just the same.)</p>
<p>Though hardly a critical success, the movie has changed lives. When Chester's nephew came across it in a video store in Denton, Texas, he decided to come out of the closet. "He saw me—I'm on the cover of the DVD—and he said, 'Oh my God, Uncle Craig is gay and I'm gay.' So he texted me: 'Uncle Craig, I'm gay and I'm happy,'" the director recalls. "People come out via text message now, which is kind of amazing."</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">A Rock Paper Cynic comic making fun of the "Adam and Steve" trope.</span>
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<p>The reclamation of "Adam and Steve" has continued apace in the digital age. Google the phrase today, and you'll mostly find blog posts, cartoons and images of support, not prejudice. NotAdamAndSteve.com is the popular blog of Will Shepherd and R.J. Aguiar, an engaged couple in Los Angeles. (Not to be confused with the similarly minded <a href="http://meetadamandsteve.blogspot.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Meet Adam and Steve</a>.) There's an <a href="http://www.xkcd2.com/1003/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">XKCD comic</a> playing off the trope. There are <a href="http://memegenerator.net/instance/54809829" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">memes</a>, <a href="http://tardis.wikia.com/wiki/Adam_and_Steve" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">comics</a>, <a href="https://chrismonday34.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/343-5-22-12.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">cartoons</a> and <a href="http://f1.bcbits.com/img/a0802587184_10.jpg" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">biblically inclined illustrations</a>. Those who do use the slogan in earnest—like this <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2015/02/anti-lgbt-pastor-rants-against-adam-and-steve-in-wild-sermon-straight-out-of-1987/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">pastor in Georgia</a>—are frequently depicted as unhinged and unreformed. When an Indiana church put up such a sign in 2013, locals spoke up in protest.</p>
<p>In Uniontown, Pennsylvania, Daniel Riggs owns a photography company called Adam &amp; Steve, which specializes in gay weddings and engagements. Riggs, who grew up in Kentucky with a Baptist minister father, wanted to start a business where small-town customers don't feel nervous asking if same-sex couples are welcome. "We were mulling over a name," Riggs says, "and I think probably every person in our LGBT community has heard 'God made Adam and Eve, not Adam and Steve.' We wanted to take something negative and make it positive."</p>
<p>Last week's Supreme Court announcement yielded another flurry of references to the cliché. On Twitter, it provided the setup for celebratory jokes and puns:</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">It's Adam and Steve not Adam and Dave. They broke up awhile ago. Are you even on Instagram??</p>
<p>— Grant Pardee (@grantpa) <a href="https://twitter.com/grantpa/status/614472431697145856">June 26, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">if ur argument for being gay is "Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve" then u need to Adam and leave</p>
<p>— angie (@cumpleted) <a href="https://twitter.com/cumpleted/status/615611044497592321">June 29, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Dudes named "Adam and Steve" who're getting married should get like a discount this week or something.</p>
<p>— Guy Branum (@guybranum) <a href="https://twitter.com/guybranum/status/614477932191436802">June 26, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">It's Adam and Eve not Robert and Sarah sorry you two can't get married</p>
<p>— Nathan Zed (@TheThirdPew) <a href="https://twitter.com/TheThirdPew/status/615262364720611328">June 28, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p>Which is not to suggest the earnest "Adam and Steve" invocation is dead—it's out there, and still ugly. It popped up this week in <a href="http://www.wltz.com/story/29440321/russell-county-reacts-to-same-sex-marriage" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">local news broadcasts</a>, <a href="http://www.stwnewspress.com/opinion/steve-fair-supreme-court-has-too-much-power/article_294e33fa-1bc6-11e5-b0fc-43d6b6e68ebd.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">gasping newspaper op-eds</a>, <a href="http://www.wdam.com/story/29427450/east-biloxi-pastor-reacts-to-same-sex-marriage" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">rants from pastors</a>, even at New York's Pride Parade, on a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/live/gay-pride-parade-updates/jewish-group-with-hired-protesters-opposes-the-parade/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">sign belonging to an orthodox Jewish group</a> that opposes gay marriage.</p>
<p>But in major media outlets, the phrase surfaces just as often as an emblem of a bygone era. Open-minded Mormons are "bored of hearing about ‘Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve,'" the British <em>Metro </em><a href="http://metro.co.uk/2015/06/30/mormon-church-split-over-rights-for-lgbt-community-5273479/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">reported</a> last week. And a<em> Daily News</em> lede on Friday deployed it rather simply.</p>
<p>"Marriage is now legal in the U.S.A. for Adam and Steve," the tabloid transmitted to its readers, "not just Adam and Eve."</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/surprising-history-phrase-adam-and-eve-not-adam-and-steve-348164Wed, 01 Jul 2015 14:47:24 -0400AC/DC Finally Puts Its Music on Streaming Serviceshttp://www.newsweek.com/acdc-finally-puts-music-streaming-services-348682
<p>At last, dirty deeds can be streamed dirt cheap (or free).</p>
<p>AC/DC has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/business/media/ac-dc-songs-will-be-added-to-streaming-services-like-apple-music.html?" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">agreed to put its music on streaming platforms</a> after holding out for years. The Australian rock group's catalog is available on Spotify and Rdio now, and it will also soon hit the newly launched Apple Music.</p>
<p>Embracing its dinosaur status, AC/DC has declined to make its music available on such platforms for years; the band only joined iTunes in 2012, long after fellow holdouts like Metallica and the Beatles. Guitarist Angus Young <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/music/2012/nov/19/ac-dc-release-albums-itunes" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">suggested in a 2011 interview</a> that the group's contempt for digital formats was because they wanted their albums heard in full: "We are a band who started off with albums, and that's how we've always been."</p>
<p>We wonder if AC/DC's interactions with <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/acdc-and-steely-dan-are-playing-coachella-2015-297136">younger, streamable bands at Coachella</a> helped tip the scales.</p>
<p>Regardless, it's been a big few weeks already for previously unavailable music landing on streaming sites. Taylor Swift announced on Thursday that her album <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/taylor-swifts-1989-isnt-perfect-it-big-pop-album-2014-desperately-needs-279924"><em>1989 </em></a>would be available on Apple Music after <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/brief-history-taylor-swift-declaring-war-streaming-platforms-345546">settling a disagreement over artist compensation</a>. Dr. Dre's 1992 album <em>The Chronic</em> is also available for streaming for the first time ever on Apple Music.</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/acdc-finally-puts-music-streaming-services-348682Tue, 30 Jun 2015 13:11:49 -0400What Do Child Psychiatrists Think of Pixar's 'Inside Out'? They Love Ithttp://www.newsweek.com/what-do-child-psychiatrists-think-pixars-wondrous-inside-out-347114
<p>Pixar, the animation studio that rose to prominence with 1995's beloved <em>Toy Story</em>, has humanized rats, cars, toys, robots, fish and monsters.</p>
<p>So it's striking to realize that <em>Inside Out</em>, the Disney-owned studio's latest work of wonder, is a movie about being human. Being a kid, specifically—one confronting the confounding barrage of emotions that comes with preadolescence. Riley, our 11-year-old hero, is lovable enough but devastated by her family's business-driven move from Minnesota to San Francisco. (Spoiler: So are you.) So she plots a revolt. (Warning: More minor spoilers ahead.)</p>
<p>And that's pretty much it for primary plot. The bulk of the action takes place in Riley's head, which is not to say that it's from her point of view but that we're physically <em>in her brain. </em>There, a team of anthropomorphic emotions—Joy, Anger, Disgust, Fear, Sadness—sift through a fantastical memory-storage apparatus and fight to stabilize Riley's mental state. The surreal brain landscape (A movie studio for dreams! An island of personality!) and the voice actors (Amy Poehler plays Joy, Mindy Kaling is Disgust) keep the concept from tripping over itself; true to emotional form, this little film is joyful and sad and fearful all at once.</p>
<p><em>Inside Out</em> is perhaps the only major motion picture ever to deal so directly with the inner workings of a child's mind. So we sent a half-dozen child psychiatrists to the movie (separately), wondering what they'd make of its depiction. Surprise: They mostly loved it. Though defiantly unscientific, <em>Inside Out,</em> it turns out, is filled with genuine insight on child emotional development. </p>
<p>"I've never seen a movie like this that talks about the brain and the emotional part of the brain in kids," said Dr. Fadi Haddad, who has a practice in Manhattan and opened one of the first child psychiatric emergency rooms in the country. Haddad was struck by the chaotic interplay between Riley's emotional components: "You can be angry and sad at the same time. You can be happy and afraid. Those emotions are very difficult for kids to understand."</p>
<p>Dr. Elisabeth Guthrie, a child psychiatrist who teaches at Columbia University Medical Center, plans to use the film in sessions with children.</p>
<p>"I thought it was helpful in putting feelings into words, for helping kids identify their feelings and start a dialogue about it," Guthrie told <em>Newsweek</em>. “If a kid is feeling sad or if a kid is acting out and they’ve seen that movie, I can use that as a reference point.”</p>
<p>Sadness, both a nuisance and a downer, proves its (and her?) worth as the film progresses; Joy realizes that Riley can’t adequately communicate her mental state without it. Several experts emphasized the lesson that plot point contains.</p>
<p>“I like the idea that basically Sadness saved the life of this child,” Dr. Haddad said. “I thought that was a brilliant ending in the movie, to see the importance of having a feeling like Sadness. That’s what connects us many times to families, to sad events, to friends, to understanding the meaning of empathy.”</p>
<p>“The thing that it really highlighted was how important emotions are—not just the positive and happy ones,” added Dr. Erica Chin, a clinical psychologist who works in the child and adolescent psychiatry unit of Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital. “Early in the movie—I don’t remember the exact quote—but the parents are like, ‘Be my strong girl.’ So I was taken with the fact that the movie put in the position that sadness is OK and sadness is reasonable to feel.”</p>
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<p>Dr. Kevin Kalikow, a child psychiatrist who (full disclosure) once saw this reporter as a 4- or 5-year-old patient, echoed the point: “Parents who are always expecting their child to be happy, that’s not a helpful perspective.” But he wished the film had more acknowledgment of differing temperaments. </p>
<p>“Not everybody is born with the same control panel as everybody else,” Kalikow said. “Some people are born happier. Some people are born more irritable.”</p>
<p>Given Riley’s particular cocktail of feelings, “I think what the character was trying to portray was what we call Childhood Depression,” said Judith F. Joseph, a child and adolescent psychiatrist with a practice in Manhattan. “That’s pretty accurate in terms of what you see with depressed pre-teens: social withdrawal, lack of friendships…”</p>
<p>There is also the depiction of memories. <em>Inside Out</em> imagines them as color-coded, marble-like spheres maintained in a massive storage facility. (It looks a little bit like the sprawling Department of Mysteries, from <em>Harry Potter</em>.) Crucially, they're not fixed; a visit from Sadness can turn a happy memory sad, an aspect of the film that's <a href="http://www.vulture.com/2015/06/neuroscientist-fact-check-inside-out.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">been praised by neuroscientists</a>. That's right on, said Dr. Chin: "Memories are not so concrete.... I think they did a good job of capturing that memories can be reframed. As therapists we're often saying, 'Can you look at this memory and see it from a different perspective.'"</p>
<p>Dr. Haddad noticed how Riley became confused by her own bright memories, thinking that a return trip to Minnesota would restore her to happiness without the family that made her happy. "We see children who run away from home because they have fights with their parents, but they miss the point that that connection was what made them happy," he said.</p>
<p>While washing dishes after seeing the film, Dr. Kalikow found himself laughing as he imagined the memories then popping into his head as little marbles. He liked <em>Inside Out'</em>s depiction of the subconscious. "It really does a great job of elucidating, in a way that's visual, all the different parts of the brain."</p>
<p>Just as imaginitively, dreams are shown as surreal productions thrown together in a slapdash movie studio, with actors hopping in and out. The resulting dreams shift from happy to sad to frightening with manic abandon. "All things can exist as true simultaneously," said Dr. Oliver Stroeh, the associate director of the Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Residency Training Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. "I thought the idea of filters was particularly clever. There's presumed objective reality, but then it gets distorted in our minds."</p>
<p>Every psychiatrist seemed to love the movie, even with its non-scientific quirks and oddities.</p>
<p>But some of them issued disclaimers.</p>
<p>"There are no little people in children's heads pushing buttons and controlling emotions," Dr. Joseph stressed. "But I thought that the spirit of it was in the right place."</p>
<p>"It was fun to see the few trillion synapses that are in a person's brain be reduced to funny little characters and a graphic typography of mountains and holes and buildings and islands," said Dr. Kalikow.</p>
<p>"It shouldn't replace Neuro-anatomy in medical school," he said. "But it's still a lot of fun to watch."</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/what-do-child-psychiatrists-think-pixars-wondrous-inside-out-347114Sun, 28 Jun 2015 15:47:24 -0400A Definitive List of the Best Summer Albums (Released Between 1985 and 1997)http://www.newsweek.com/definitive-list-best-summer-albums-released-between-1985-and-1997-347145
<p>What are you going to listen to while driving to the coast next weekend? Or jogging on the beach? Barbecuing with your wife's coworker who you hate but have to invite because he lives down the block?</p>
<p>Here, take these: a list of our 20 favorite summer albums ever (or at least released between the years 1985 and 1997). That's not to say these records all lyrically reference the summertime (though many of them do)—just that they all seem to capture the spirit and splendor of the season. </p>
<p>Why limit it to the years 1985–1997? Because why not? We noticed while putting this list together that most of our selections fell between those years, and so it felt right to formalize that focus. Plus, there are (or soon will be) plenty of lists highlighting the best records of this year or decade so far; this is a tribute to the pop glory days of the eighties and nineties.</p>
<p>And yes, we purposefully cut out 1984—home to <em>Purple Rain</em>, <em>Born in the U.S.A.</em>, <em>Like a Virgin</em> and many other mid-'80s smashes. That's too easy.</p>
<p><strong>AEROSMITH, <em>PERMANENT VACATION</em></strong> (Geffen, 1987)</p>
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<p>I think the millennial generation does not have a profound enough appreciation for Aerosmith. We know them from things like the regrettably unavoidable <em>Armageddon </em>soundtrack, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nlK6VfnWH34">when the Red Sox were in the 2004 World Series</a>. But Aerosmith is so much more than just another band in your dad’s Top 20 Faves, far superior even to their excellent <em>Wayne’s World 2 </em>appearance. In fairness, Aerosmith probably have their own trigger-happy licensing to blame for how our generation currently pigeonholes them. But if you allow them to, Aerosmith can conjure rebellious summer feelings better than most other bands, and the balls-to-the-wall rock of <em>Permanent Vacation</em> can transport you magically to a time of smoking j’s in the back of your boyfriend’s wicked cool Acura Integra in Somerville, circa 1987. Or you can keep associating “Dude (Looks Like A Lady)” with <em>Mrs. Doubtfire</em>. Whatever. <em>—Cady Drell</em></p>
<p><strong>Sell it in one tweet: </strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">[opens gift] What is it? Bro it's a discman with Aerosmith's Permanent Vacation album superglued inside [tears, hugs]</p>
<p>— Paul (@YesNoSuper) <a href="https://twitter.com/YesNoSuper/status/469667342382030848">May 23, 2014</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>BECK, <em>ODELAY </em></strong>(DGC, 1996)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">Texas is a large state with long, toasty summers. Naturally, things start to get a bit weird when you grow up in Houston, a city defined by sprawl and typical 105-degree heat with 100 percent humidity. Luckily, I had the enchanting wizard of rhythm, Beck, to guide me through languid summers with his slop-pop 1996 masterpiece <em>Odelay</em>. From the moment I popped the CD into the car stereo as an impressionable 15-year old, I swooned over Beck’s wizzy tape samples, yodels, country stomps and unconventional beats. Beck got me <em>and</em> my teenage Texan ennui sing-rapping lines like “going back to Houston to get me some pants” and humming “hazard signs down the Alamo lanes.” Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got an appointment for a devil’s haircut I’ve had in mind. <em>—Paula Mejia</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">theres an alternate universe where sea change has the odelay lyrics.</p>
<p>— Beanut Pubber (@diarrhea) <a href="https://twitter.com/diarrhea/status/582754363619340288">March 31, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>KATE BUSH, <em>HOUNDS OF LOVE</em> </strong>(EMI, 1985)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">Like XTC's <em>Skylarking</em>—which appeared a year later and also appears on this list—<em>Hounds of Love</em>'s sequencing hints at the cycle of the seasons. The first vinyl side, with its airy choruses and visions of big skies and shoes thrown into the lake, suggests a glorious English summer. Unlike <em>Skylarking</em>, Bush's big breakthrough dips into a confounding Side B cycle about witches and drowning and hallucinations beheld in the water at night. Perfect for the beach! Naturally, this strange animal of an album proved to be Bush's biggest commercial success. <em>—Zach Schonfeld</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Just Got off the Phone with Kate Bush !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>— Big Boi (@BigBoi) <a href="https://twitter.com/BigBoi/status/235881862541758464">August 15, 2012</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>COCTEAU TWINS, <em>HEAVEN OR LAS VEGAS </em></strong>(4AD, 1990)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">After a string of gorgeous, sugar-sweet offerings from dream pop heaven, Scotland's Cocteau Twins released... an even more gorgeous and sugary dream pop opus. Full of magnificent melodic touches that make you crane your head each time, <em>Heaven or Las Vegas</em> marks the moment Cocteau Twins shifted beyond '80s drum textures as well as the moment Elizabeth Fraser's high-climbing vocal swells became decipherable (maybe not on "Cherry-Coloured Funk"—"Should I be sewn in hugged I can by not saying"??). It also signalled a last moment of bliss before Fraser and husband/guitarist Robin Guthrie's relationship soured (as did the band's own relationship with its record label, 4AD). The songs' visions of carnivals and babies and "Frou-Frou Foxes In Midsummer Fires" are perfect for an early summer evening. Sing along with the gibberish syllables of your choice. <em>—Zach Schonfeld</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">"Heaven or Las Vegas" by Cocteau Twins was released in 1990, but it was 25 years ahead of it's time so listen to this album right now.</p>
<p>— elvis depressedly (@comacinema) <a href="https://twitter.com/comacinema/status/585264707541606400">April 7, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>DIGABLE PLANETS, <em>REACHIN' (A NEW REFUTATION OF TIME AND SPACE) </em></strong>(Pendulum/Elektra, 1993)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">When it’s not blisteringly hot outside, rediscovering one’s own city on foot can be one of the best parts of summer. <em>Reachin’</em>, the funkadelic first album from the short-lived but prolific jazz-hop trio Digable Planets, is a concept album about groovy aliens coming to Earth, and coincidentally happens to be the absolute soundtrack for city-slickers hoping to get some mileage out of the pavement during these warm months. What makes it so perfect? There’s not an uncool song in the mix, from the bouncy “Where I’m From” to the classic mashed-potato smooth “Rebirth of Slick (Cool Like Dat).” Trust. <em>—Paula Mejia</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">I'm absolutely not the same person I was prior to listening to A New Refutation of Time and Space and that is AMAZING</p>
<p>— A$AP Heaux (@notchelzclinton) <a href="https://twitter.com/notchelzclinton/status/553207462900555776">January 8, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>DJ JAZZY JEFF &amp; THE FRESH PRINCE, <em>HOMEBASE </em></strong>(Jive/RCA, 1991)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">Some choice lyrical highlights from this fourth record from a young Will Smith. From "Summertime": "The way that people respond to summer madness / The weather is hot and girls are dressing less / And checking out the fellas to tell 'em who's best / Riding around in your jeep or your Benzos / Or in your Nissan sitting on Lorenzos." From "Things That U Do": "Now why oh why would an incredibly fly guy like me / Be chasing one lady / It's just something about you." From "Caught in the Middle": "Walking around barefoot sniffing daisies / Laying around all day long making babies / Go to France and dancing, eating in Sweden." No, this album hasn't aged well at all. It's as cheesy as golden-era hip-hop gets. Yes, of course we're including it. Come on, it has "Summertime." <em>—Zach Schonfeld</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">That "Homebase" album from Dj Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince was/is Sooooooooo monstrous!!!!!</p>
<p>— Sherrod Harris (@sherrodharris) <a href="https://twitter.com/sherrodharris/status/413829764609105920">December 20, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>GREEN DAY, <em>DOOKIE </em></strong>(Reprise, 1994)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">Braces, tears, angst, whining, zits and no motivation: Nothing speaks to the days of sluggishness and sunshine quite like Green Day’s <em>Dookie </em>does. Whether it was the first album you bought or if you were still in the womb upon its 1994 release,<em> Dookie</em>’s anthemic singles such as “Basket Case” and tongue-in-cheek love songs like “Pulling Teeth” remain just as poignant and present today. And yeah, it still makes you want to break things. <em>—Paula Mejia</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Then his gigantic bag got stuck in the train doors. It was dramatic. Also, told you it was 'Dookie' bro</p>
<p>— Paula Mejia (@tenaciouspm) <a href="https://twitter.com/tenaciouspm/status/610102774471217152">June 14, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>HEAVY VEGETABLE, <em>FRISBIE</em></strong><em> </em>(Headhunter, 1995)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">Twenty-eight weirdly delectable prog-pop nuggets—about aliens, about ducks, about surfing, about Jackie Chan. Before Rob Crow fronted Pinback, he recorded this brilliant, scattershot disc with Heavy Vegetable. The cover depicts a dog, in mid-air frisbie catch. How summery is that? <em>—Zach Schonfeld</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="es" xml:lang="es">Nunca había estado tan contento con música robada como con el album Frisbie - Heavy Vegetable cortesía de <a href="https://twitter.com/bowlofoatmeal">@bowlofoatmeal</a></p>
<p>— Guillermo (@grillermo) <a href="https://twitter.com/grillermo/status/430882205183664128">February 5, 2014</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>JELLYFISH, <em>SPILT MILK</em> </strong>(Charisma, 1993)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">God bless Jellyfish for releasing this lost power-pop masterwork at the height of the grunge explosion. With angst on the airwaves, Andy Sturmer and Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. (with help from soon-to-be-star-producer Jon Brion) crafted 12 unfashionably sunny and remarkably well-built pop gems about fan clubs, kindergarten classrooms and—in one less-than-subtle instance—<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmlubhrI7Dc">the singer’s penis</a>. It's the colorfulness of it all that makes it such a great summer record; nods to peak Queen, '80s metal and The Beatles at their sugariest abound, but<em> Spilt Milk</em> couldn’t have been made by anyone but Jellyfish. Shame they didn’t copyright the title “Bye Bye Bye” before NSYNC nabbed it. <em>—Zach Schonfeld</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Jellyfish are the most underrated band ever. Spilt Milk is a bloomin masterpiece! It’s making me actually enjoy this traffic I’m stuck in.</p>
<p>— Tom Fletcher (@tommcfly) <a href="https://twitter.com/tommcfly/status/301751361173852160">February 13, 2013</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>PAVEMENT, <em>CROOKED RAIN, CROOKED RAIN </em></strong>(Matador, 1994)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">I just wanted to pick a Pavement album, and this is the one with “Gold Soundz,” arguably the most self-consciously summery song in their catalog. “You can never quarantine the past,” but you can certainly sequester it in a listicle. <em>—Cady Drell</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">some days Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain is my favorite album of all time and today's one of those days</p>
<p>— Mark Richardson (@_markrichardson) <a href="https://twitter.com/_markrichardson/status/593607252059226114">April 30, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>TOM PETTY, <em>FULL MOON FEVER </em></strong>(MCA/Universal, 1989)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">What constitutes the perfect road trip playlist? It’s a question that causes even the most well-meaning humans to argue amongst each other. But I am hard-pressed to find an album more well-suited for those long, aimless summer drives than Tom Petty’s <em>Full Moon Fever</em>. Just think about gunning down a highway to “Runnin’ Down a Dream,” or cruising with the windows down outside the city limits blasting “Love Is a Long Road.” And who hasn’t enjoyed singing “Free Fallin’” loudly, terribly and off-key with friends? Turn it up, and turn it up loud. <em>—Paula Mejia</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">"Your honor, I may have stolen $10,000 worth of Full Moon Fever CDs but consider what I took: shouldn't that be considered Petty theft?"</p>
<p>— Andrew Crowley (@JumpinJackFlask) <a href="https://twitter.com/JumpinJackFlask/status/592354505246707715">April 26, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>LIZ PHAIR, <em>EXILE IN GUYVILLE </em></strong>(Matador, 1993)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">Liz Phair did the Stones better than the Stones did the Stones with her 1993 debut <em>Exile in Guyville</em>, a song-by-song response to <em>Exile on Main Street</em>. The album is a meditation on the fictitious Guyville, which Phair has said is a place where “men are men and women are learning.” It gripped me as a confused teenager, and today, <em>Guyville</em> reeks of sweat and sticky salted caramel cones, sand in between your toes and the wooziness of romance—everything a summer is made of. <em>—Paula Mejia</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">I'd watch a jukebox musical that was just a girl recording Exile in Guyville into a tape recorder for two hours, no intermission</p>
<p>— Rachel Syme (@rachsyme) <a href="https://twitter.com/rachsyme/status/614128575856418816">June 25, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>THE PHARCYDE, <em>BIZARRE RIDE II THE PHARCYDE </em></strong>(Delicious Vinyl, 1992)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">In the age of Public Enemy and the Beastie Boys’ Yauch-led foray into social conscience, a little L.A. group called The Pharcyde dared make hip-hop fun again. <em>Bizarre Ride II</em> is a goofy, effortlessly funky trip that’s not unlike the cartoonish puzzle of an amusement park ride depicted on its cover. In just under an hour, Imani and his fellow emcees pack their pipes, insult your mother, charm the police and debase the American presidency. The '90s hip-hop collection is incomplete without it. <em>—Zach Schonfeld</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Kanye West names "Bizarre Ride" as his favorite hip hop album. Nice! Thanks for the love, Kanye.... http://fb.me/Mt4LpbxS</p>
<p>— Slimkid3 (@Slimkid3) <a href="https://twitter.com/Slimkid3/status/8028968137527296">November 26, 2010</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>R.E.M., <em>OUT OF TIME</em></strong> (Warner Bros., 1991)</p>
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<p>Athens' finest had already gone pop—1987’s stellar <em>Document </em>hit platinum, yielding three major singles, while the mixed-bag follow-up <em>Green </em>launched the group’s biggest tour to date. But <em>Out of Time</em> is the first R.E.M. record that might reasonably be described as “sunny.” It’s drenched in strings, well-executed pastoral turns (see: the haunting, undersung “Country Feedback”) and playful touches that’d have been inconceivable for the mumbly R.E.M. of 1985. You’ll recognize three hits: One’s got KRS-One rapping, one’s the mopey mandolin number that somehow ballooned into a karaoke favorite and one’s the regrettable (though admittedly summery) “Shiny Happy People.” While they’d top it the following year, R.E.M. would never make a warmer or more welcoming pop album. <em>—Zach Schonfeld</em></p>
<p><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">here comes the part of the REM song where KRS-One raps</p>
<p>— Garrett Martin (@grmartin) <a href="https://twitter.com/grmartin/status/601132206774452225">May 20, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>PAUL SIMON, <em>GRACELAND </em></strong>(Warner Bros., 1986)</p>
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<p>It’s silly to even elaborate on why this album is so good, but in the context of summer, “Graceland” is a good road trip song despite being less about a road trip and more about the ephemeral nature of all things. This is an interesting record to have stood the test of time, given the context in which it was recorded and how far-removed we usually feel in 2015 from apartheid South Africa. But the musicians Simon broke the U.N. cultural agreement to worth with are what take this album from a Paul Simon solo work (which is nothing to sneeze at, of course) to one of the most singularly beautiful albums of the last century. There's so much to discover, you never listen to it the same way twice. Plus, although it works in any season, Simon's goofy zydeco flourishes take away much of the pain of being stuck in California traffic when it's 100 degrees out the window. <em>—Cady Drell</em></p>
<p><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">i was woken up early by a neighbor's loud music but kinda don't care because it was graceland by paul simon.</p>
<p>— Sara Rubin (@sweetestsara) <a href="https://twitter.com/sweetestsara/status/600669977973166081">May 19, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>SPICE GIRLS, <em>SPICE </em></strong>(Virgin, 1996)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">Tell me what you want, what you really really want out of a summer album? You want harmonies and rhymes and spice and everything nice? You need <em>Spice</em> back in your life. Enough said. <em>—Paula Mejia</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Ready to feel old? The Spice Girls first album came out thirty years ago today.</p>
<p>— Paul Verhoeven (@paulverhoeven) <a href="https://twitter.com/paulverhoeven/status/592473411269500929">April 26, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p><strong>XTC, <em>SKYLARKING</em></strong><em> </em>(Virgin/Geffen, 1986)</p>
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<p>And just like that, the jerky New Wave outfit responsible for <em>Drums &amp; Wires</em> glided into sun-tinted psychedelic pop with this masterpiece. <em>Skylarking</em>—home to the best songwriting of Andy Partridge and Colin Moulding's career—flows as a song cycle on several levels: It traces the change of the seasons ("Summer chased by autumn / Autumn chased by winter") as well as the cycle of a human life from youthful innocence to marriage and hardship ("Big Day," "Earn Enough for Us") to looming mortality ("Dying"). And it kicks off with "Summer's Cauldron," one of the great pop paeans to summer's offerings. (Sidenote: Two other XTC albums, <em>Mummer </em>and <em>Apple Venus Volume 1</em>, could reasonably be described as summer albums. Neither are as good as <em>Skylarking</em>.) <em>—Zach Schonfeld</em></p>
<p><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><a href="https://twitter.com/Andrew_Ervin">@Andrew_Ervin</a> Crack that beer open</p>
<p>— XTC (@xtcfans) <a href="https://twitter.com/xtcfans/status/613792224145448960">June 24, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>A TRIBE CALLED QUEST,<em> PEOPLE'S INSTINCTIVE TRAVELS AND THE PATHS OF RHYTHM</em></strong> (Jive, 1990)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">So few records these days provide a universally agreed-upon soundtrack to any possible summer activity you could be doing, including leaving your wallet in El Segundo. I don’t even feel worthy to explain <em>People's Instinctive Travels</em>' merits, partially because of how difficult it was to pick between it and <em>The Low End Theory. </em>In the end, it's probably best to go with the debut record. But seriously? What kind of band comes out with a debut like this, and then follows it up with <em>The Low End Theory</em>? And then follows<em> that</em> up with <em>Midnight Marauders</em>?! It’s a one-two-three punch of rap genius. <em>—Cady Drell</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">People's Instinctive Travels... by Tribe Called Quest never gets old. At all. Timeless brilliance.</p>
<p>— Steve Lawson (@solobasssteve) <a href="https://twitter.com/solobasssteve/status/591943750680731649">April 25, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>GALAXIE 500, <em>TODAY</em></strong> (Aurora, 1988)</p>
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<p dir="ltr"><em>Today</em>, Galaxie 500's swoon-worthy debut speaks about living presently without ever spelling it out explicitly. When the temperature's rising, nothing makes you more conscious of the beauty around you than this album, from the interplay of electric guitars to lyrics buzzing about flowers and subway trains where people are losing their senses. And the trio's gossamer cover of Jonathan Richman's "Don't Let Our Youth Go to Waste" is at once <em>Today</em>'s shimmering centerpiece, and a gentle reminder that, yes, today more than any other day, you should eat that ice cream cake for dinner. <em>—Paula Mejia</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">Galaxie 500 today's album was glorious</p>
<p>— Sophia Banks (@sophiaphotos) <a href="https://twitter.com/sophiaphotos/status/598198846687150081">May 12, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
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<p dir="ltr"><strong>BEASTIE BOYS, <em>LICENSED TO ILL</em></strong> (Mercury, 1986)</p>
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<p dir="ltr">Did you know that this record is the only album by a Jewish rap group to get a perfect score from <em>The Source</em>? The reason that seems odd is probably an issue of taxonomy: It's weird to think of this group as anything other than the Beastie Boys, period. They resisted classification for their entire three-plus-decade career and this, their first LP, is truly one of the most enjoyably life-affirming albums ever produced. They pulled out all of the mid-1980s hip-hop stops while being so remarkably witty and weirdly earnest in their braggadocio and rhymes about Rice-A-Roni that they ended up flipping all of the cliches they embraced on their heads. “Hold It Now, Hit It” is a great summer song, and “No Sleep Till Brooklyn” is a great summer song and “Girls” is a great summer song, and obviously “(You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party!)” is overplayed to this very day but perhaps only because it is an undeniably great summer song, and all of that adds up to one of the truly brilliant, weird, horny, lazy, stoned, goofy, best-friends-forever summer albums ever made. By anyone, period. <em>—Cady Drell</em></p>
<p dir="ltr"><strong>Sell it in one tweet:</strong></p>
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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en" xml:lang="en"><p dir="ltr" lang="en" xml:lang="en">"License To Ill" by the Beastie Boys is a top ten rap album of all time.</p>
<p>— thomas kobrak (@TKobrak) <a href="https://twitter.com/TKobrak/status/614161410864496640">June 25, 2015</a></p></blockquote>
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http://www.newsweek.com/definitive-list-best-summer-albums-released-between-1985-and-1997-347145Fri, 26 Jun 2015 13:08:35 -0400Here Are the Most Remarkable Quotes from the Gay Marriage Dissentshttp://www.newsweek.com/best-quotes-supreme-courts-gay-marriage-dissent-347225
<p>Not every justice is happy with the Supreme Court's <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-gay-marriage-legal-all-50-states-347204">landmark 5-to-4 decision to legalize same-sex marriage</a> in all 50 states.</p>
<p>Justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito all filed their own dissenting opinions, railing against what he called an affront to "religious liberty" and "the principles upon which our Nation was built." Here are the most striking and bitter excerpts.</p>
<p><strong>Antonin Scalia:</strong></p>
<p>No surprises: Right-leaning Reagan appointee Justice Scalia dissented with the Court's decision—as he <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/domesticpolicy/scalia-high-handed-kennedy-has-declared-us-enemies-of-the-human-race-20130626" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">has in previous cases</a>—in favor of same-sex marriage. This time, his dissent took a bitter and even mocking tone. </p>
<p>He criticized the supposedly "incoherent" phrasing of the majority decision, written by Justice Kennedy:</p>
<blockquote><p>"The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic. It is one thing for separate concurring or dissenting opinions to contain extravagances, even silly extravagances, of thought and expression; it is something else for the official opinion of the Court to do so. Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent."</p>
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<p>Despite it being 2015, he mentions hippies:</p>
<blockquote><p>One would think Freedom of Intimacy is abridged rather than expanded by marriage. Ask the nearest hippie. Expression, sure enough, <em>is</em> a freedom, but anyone in a long-lasting marriage will attest that that happy state constricts, rather than expands, what one can prudently say.</p>
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<p>And he threatened to "hide my head in a bag" because the Supreme Court has embraced "the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie":</p>
<blockquote><p>If, even as the price to be paid for a fifth vote, I ever joined an opinion for the Court that began: “The Constitution promises liberty to all within its reach, a liberty that includes certain specific rights that allow persons, within a lawful realm, to define and express their identity,” I would hide my head in a bag. The Supreme Court of the United States has descended from the disciplined legal reasoning of John Marshall and Joseph Story to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie.</p>
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<p>He also warned about the coming "impotence" of the Court because of decisions like this one:</p>
<blockquote><p>With each decision of ours that takes from the People a question properly left to them—with each decision that is unabashedly based not on law, but on the “reasoned judgment” of a bare majority of this Court—we move one step closer to being reminded of our impotence.</p>
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<p>He even griped about his fellow justices' personal backgrounds (and said California didn't count as a Western state):</p>
<blockquote><p>Take, for example, this Court, which consists of only nine men and women, all of them successful lawyers18 who studied at Harvard or Yale Law School. Four of the nine are natives of New York City. Eight of them grew up in east- and west-coast States. Only one hails from the vast expanse in-between. Not a single Southwesterner or even, to tell the truth, a genuine Westerner (California does not count). Not a single evangelical Christian (a group that comprises about one quarter of Americans19), or even a Protestant of any denomination. The strikingly unrepresentative character of the body voting on today’s social upheaval would be irrelevant if they were functioning as judges, answering the legal question whether the American people had ever ratified a constitutional provision that was understood to proscribe the traditional definition of marriage. But of course the Justices in today’s majority are not voting on that basis; they say they are not. And to allow the policy question of same-sex marriage to be considered and resolved by a select, patrician, highly unrepresentative panel of nine is to violate a principle even more fundamental than no taxation without representation: no social transformation without representation.</p>
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<p><strong>Clarence Thomas:</strong></p>
<p>Conservative Justice Thomas joined with Scalia in dissenting from the Court's historic 5–4 decision. He argued that the Court as it currently stands contradicts "the principles upon which our Nation was built":</p>
<blockquote><p>The Court’s decision today is at odds not only with the Constitution, but with the principles upon which our Nation was built. Since well before 1787, liberty has been understood as freedom from government action, not entitlement to government benefits.</p>
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<p>In a particularly stunning passage he uses slavery and internment camps to argue the government can't take away dignity:</p>
<blockquote><p>The corollary of that principle is that human dignity cannot be taken away by the government. Slaves did not lose their dignity (any more than they lost their humanity) because the government allowed them to be enslaved. Those held in internment camps did not lose their dignity because the government confined them. And those denied governmental benefits certainly do not lose their dignity because the government denies them those benefits. The government cannot bestow dignity, and it cannot take it away.</p>
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<p><strong>John Roberts:</strong></p>
<p>Justice Roberts' dissent cites an old conservative favorite: The notion that "religious liberty" is at threat when same-sex marriage is legal:</p>
<blockquote><p>Today’s decision, for example, creates serious questions about religious liberty. Many good and decent people oppose same-sex marriage as a tenet of faith, and their freedom to exercise religion is—unlike the right imagined by the majority— actually spelled out in the Constitution.</p>
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<p>And, in defending the "universal definition of marriage as the union of a man and a woman," he offered up an elementary-level lesson in the birds and the bees:</p>
<blockquote><p>The premises supporting this concept of marriage are so fundamental that they rarely require articulation. The human race must procreate to survive. Procreation occurs through sexual relations between a man and a woman. When sexual relations result in the conception of a child, that child’s prospects are generally better if the mother and father stay together rather than going their separate ways. Therefore, for the good of children and society, sexual relations that can lead to procreation should occur only between a man and a woman committed to a lasting bond</p>
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<p><strong>Samuel Alito:</strong></p>
<p>Finally, Bush-appointee Alito wrote the final dissenting opinion. He took a warning tone, arguing that the decision would be "used to vilify" Americans who don't embrace the new gay order:</p>
<blockquote><p>Today’s decision usurps the constitutional right of the people to decide whether to keep or alter the traditional understanding of marriage. The decision will also have other important consequences. It will be used to vilify Americans who are unwilling to assent to the new orthodoxy</p>
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<p>Like Roberts, he delved into procreation and says that single mothers are both a cause and a result of "changes in our society's understanding of marriage":</p>
<blockquote><p>If this traditional understanding of the purpose of marriage does not ring true to all ears today, that is probably because the tie between marriage and procreation has frayed. Today, for instance, more than 40% of all children in this country are born to unmarried women.2 This development undoubtedly is both a cause and a result of changes in our society’s understanding of marriage</p>
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<p>Here are the complete decisions. Follow <em>Newsweek</em>'s <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/supreme-court-gay-marriage-legal-all-50-states-347204">live coverage of the court's decision</a>.</p>
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http://www.newsweek.com/best-quotes-supreme-courts-gay-marriage-dissent-347225Fri, 26 Jun 2015 12:50:52 -0400The World's First Underground Park Is Closer to Realityhttp://www.newsweek.com/new-york-getting-worlds-first-underground-park-346914
<p>Leave the sunscreen at home. New York parkgoers might soon be moving underground—literally.</p>
<p>The Lowline (yes, like the Highline) is a <a href="http://www.dnainfo.com/new-york/20120913/lower-east-side/lowline-preview-features-life-size-model-of-proposed-underground-park" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">proposed underground park</a> that would lie below the Lower East Side, near the Essex Street subway station. The site once served as the trolley terminal for the Williamsburg Bridge. First proposed in 2011, the park—if it succeeds—will use solar technology and fiber optic cables to stream natural light below the ground.</p>
<p>Now the co-founders, Dan Barasch and James Ramsey, <a href="http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/06/23/new-york-today-what-grows-below/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">are negotiating with the city</a> and raising money on Kickstarter to fund the necessary solar technology. </p>
<p>They describe the Lowline Lab as "a long-term solar device testing laboratory and public exhibition to test and display our tech and design vision." The goal is to open it (the lab, not the park) for six months as a test, beginning this September.</p>
<p>Watch a video showing how the Lowline would work:</p>
<p><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/l-jKuJIT34I" width="640"></iframe></p>
http://www.newsweek.com/new-york-getting-worlds-first-underground-park-346914Thu, 25 Jun 2015 15:17:28 -0400Even Jefferson Davis's Great-Great-Grandson Thinks the Confederate Flag Should Gohttp://www.newsweek.com/even-jefferson-daviss-great-great-grandson-thinks-confederate-flag-should-go-346252
<p>Bertram Hayes-Davis has spent more time than most looking at the Confederate battle flag.</p>
<p>It comes with the family. Hayes-Davis, 66, is the great-great-grandson of Jefferson Davis. He serves as president of the <a href="http://www.beauvoirfoundation.org/board.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Beauvoir Foundation</a>, which promotes "education of Jefferson Davis and Southern Culture," and has traveled the country defending the Confederate president's legacy.</p>
<p>Still, in light of <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/report-nine-shot-charleston-south-carolina-church-shooting-344235">last week's racially charged shooting in a Charleston, South Carolina, church</a>, even he says it's time for the flag to come down.</p>
<p>"The battle flag is a historic symbol of a conflict and should be appropriately displayed in museums as such," Hayes-Davis told <em>Newsweek</em>. "But it isn't something that I think demands any public display."</p>
<p>A longtime emblem for white supremacists and "Lost Causers" glorifying the slave-holding South, the flag—and its presence on the South Carolina Statehouse grounds—has drawn national scrutiny in the days since Dylann Roof allegedly murdered nine people at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston. All of the shooting's victims were African-American; the suspect is white.</p>
<p>On Tuesday, South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/hundreds-protest-confederate-flag-sc-statehouse-after-church-shooting-345580">formally called for the removal</a> of the flag from the capitol grounds.</p>
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<span class="image-caption" itemprop="caption">Bertram Hayes-Davis is the direct descendant of Jefferson Davis, and formerly served as executive director of Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis Home in Mississippi.</span>
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<p>"If that individual is representative of the flag, that is obviously the most horrendous thing that we could ever ask for to have happened," Hayes-Davis said, referring to Roof, whose <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/us/dylann-storm-roof-photos-website-charleston-church-shooting.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">apparent affection for the Confederate symbol</a> has surfaced in photos and an online manifesto.</p>
<p>Asked if he believes the flag carries racist connotations, the former banker was ambivalent. "I'm not taking the position of stating anything that the flag represents in reference to any group. I'm just saying that if it's offensive and carries any connotation other than a historic artifact, then yes, it should be put in its proper place."</p>
<p>It's not the first instance Hayes-Davis has expressed discomfort with the visual emblem of the secessionist South. In 2014, he left a job as executive director of Beauvoir—the site of the Jefferson Davis home and presidential library in Mississippi—in part because of a disagreement concerning the flag.</p>
<p>"I worked hard to diminish and move the Confederate flag on the property and to expand the Jefferson Davis Presidential Library to reflect the entire story of his life," Hayes-Davis explained. Both directives were met with resistance from the board.</p>
<p>The site's new executive director, Greg Stewart, denies this account and says Hayes-Davis's departure involved money and a failure to provide bank records from his private foundation. Stewart said he's glad to have the flag on the property and described the South Carolina controversy as a "Taliban approach."</p>
<p>"The Taliban blew up the Bamiyan monuments in Afghanistan. That was a ridiculous overreaction to an inanimate object. That's what we're seeing," Stewart said.</p>
<p>Hayes-Davis now lives in Gulfport, Mississippi, where Davis is held in "high regard." He continues to speak publicly on the legacy of his great-great-grandfather, who he says deserves to be remembered for more than the four years he spent as president of the Confederate States of America. Before the war, Davis served as an army lieutenant, a U.S. secretary of war and a Democratic senator who championed the spread of slavery. Late in life, he published a memoir and urged Southerners to remain loyal to the Union. </p>
<p>"The American consensus is that he's wrapped in the Confederate flag, which actually represents a little less than 5 percent of his entire life," Hayes-Davis said. "He reluctantly accepted the duty that was given to him by the state of Mississippi and obviously the Confederate States of America, but it wasn't something that he wanted."</p>
<p>A century and a half later, the Davis descendant says that "the battle flag of the Confederate States of America is representative of something that very few if anybody wants to be part of."</p>
http://www.newsweek.com/even-jefferson-daviss-great-great-grandson-thinks-confederate-flag-should-go-346252Wed, 24 Jun 2015 16:47:36 -0400